


The Queen's Gambit

by Trials_of_Sin



Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Art, Comedy, Dragons, Drama, F/M, Film Noir, Gen, Tarot, Toys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 04:09:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 151,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16736835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trials_of_Sin/pseuds/Trials_of_Sin
Summary: Even after that strange, eventful day, after Kris and Susie escaped the dark world, a conflict Kris isn't aware of, keeps drawing him back into it. Each time, he either follows or is followed into it by someone else. Each time, that other person from hometown has baggage of their own that they can't escape from. Not even into magical worlds inside closets and dark rooms.Draconic Fortune:Art and cards. Between Kris and Noelle, each have their own respective long-time hobby, that they only recently decided to share with their new friends. Each with their own reasons for why they didn't do so before. It's only fitting that exactly then, those same hobbies find a way to haunt them.





	1. So it begins

Love in Plastic

Chapter 01

So it Begins

* * *

Kris couldn't see. "Where...where am I? Hello...? Anyone...?" It was dark. He could feel nothing, he could see nothing. He expected to feel frosty air glide along his cheeks, but he didn't feel his cheeks either. "Is...is anybody there?"

Only slowly, he began hearing something other than his own inner voice. It started off completely silent, but more and more, he could hear a repetition of something. Sometimes, there was variation. "...and siman tov, up the hill and down the hill, test, test, one, two, three, the wheels on the bus..."

As soon as he realized that it was an actual voice, he shouted. Or at least he tried to. "Hello? Hello!"

"...oh, can you hear me?"

The endless, random ramblings had come to a stop. Who or whatever that was, Kris at last had its attention. "Yes!"

"At last, we are connected. We had some unexpected trouble."

"Where am I? It's cold, and I can't feel my..."

"At the moment, you are nowhere at all."

He was feeling more agitated by the lack of change in how much he knew about what happened, when suddenly his surroundings changed. He could finally see something. It was just that it wasn't anything specific. Just an endless, white-purplish blur that extended endlessly in every direction. "Don't leave me alone! Where am I?"

"This isn't important. What matters is the change."

"Change? What change."

"They are gone. I can't read them anywhere. And yet we are talking. The dog must have been lazy."

"Who? Talk to me! Give me some answers!" Something about all this was making him panic. He just wanted to get out of here.

"You are on your own it seems."

"On my...stop this! Where am I?" He was avoiding giving him clear answers.

"No need to worry. What matters is that they are gone. You are without guidance."

"Does...does that mean I can do what I want again?"

"Indeed. If you are up to the task. Tell me, when you are faced with a tough decision, will you be able to make it?" Kris thought about the answer. Perhaps it was his own fault for being too slow, but before he could, the voice went on. "Neither of us have a choice but to see for ourselves." Suddenly, Kris felt something scratching the side of his head. He tried to reach for it, but he couldn't. He couldn't feel his hand.

* * *

Then the scratching began to grow stronger. It penetrated the surface of his head and while it expanded across his body, filled him with painful jitters. Faster and faster, it went way beyond his head, until he could feel the pain in his arms, his legs, his chest, everywhere. And then, with a slam, a feeling as if he had fallen down a building and crashed against the pavement, it all ended.

Still with his heart racing from the shock, he slammed his eyes wide open and began breathing heavily. It was over. At least he thought so. But a quick look around had him calm down, as while the bed sheet was pushed away, he was still back in his room. And he was fine. His hands, his face, he could touch and feel everything. He got up. Asriel's alarm clock listed ten past seven. He had twenty more minutes before it would wake him up to go to school. Just enough to get some pie for breakfast.

The door to the bathroom was closed. And he could hear water running from behind, Mom was already awake and in the shower. Half the pie was already eaten. Nonetheless he cut himself a piece of it and sat down at the table. To think about the dream he had just had. He often had these nightmares. Usually, it would end the same way.

Being given options to create a 'vessel', only for it to be thrown away and him to be thrown back into his own, human 'vessel'. Something was different on the previous day though. He was looking at everything, sometimes staring and thinking about things he knew perfectly well, and talking to everyone he saw.

His choices were not his own. But now, he got up early enough, checking for the time was his choice, not looking at every single thing in his room was his choice, walking straight down the hallway and the stairs without inspecting the crayon box was his choice.

Cutting only as small a piece of the pie for himself to eat wasn't necessarily his choice, he did that, because Mom was getting too annoyed with him having too much of it. Then again, he had to wonder whether he was imagining it. It wasn't all that bad. Maybe he just felt like taking a stroll after school. What stood more to question was whether most of his day that day had even happened in the first place.

The entire day was surreal to him. And all the more did everything after leaving the class room. Fantasy creatures, magic, suddenly pulling weaponry out of nowhere, the entire thing being chronically jumbled up as if he had just 'gone back' to repeat things from time to time, and in the end, they both 'woke up'. He was convinced at first, that it was a dream. But a quick look at the calendar said otherwise. If he assumed the entire previous day was a dream, then he somehow magically skipped a day. So that wasn't it. Maybe only some of it was.

Especially the part about going on a magical adventure with Susie, that entire part felt more like what he expected a drug trip to be like, than an actual series of events. Then again, maybe much more of it wasn't. It all seemed a bit too convenient, a bit too perfect to be true. But he could have sworn he and Susie 'woke up' together, she even asked him whether it was a dream, so she must have had a similar experience, and then there was the class room's contents being eerily familiar.

He spent the next few minutes hesitantly savoring pieces of pie while thinking about ways to determine how much of yesterday had actually happened. His first opportunity came his way when his mother was done taking a shower and, dressed in a bath robe, got herself a leftover piece of the pie and sat down next to him at the round table. He was startled when she leaned in and planted a long, drawn-out kiss on the left side of his forehead. "Good morning. You seem up a lot sooner today."

Kris tried to laugh off the slight uncomfortable feeling. He found himself hesitating when what came next was obvious. He just swallowed down any concerns with whether he was going to confuse her and simply stayed vague. "I'm sorry you were worried yesterday. I didn't mean for that."

She began stroking his back with one hand while holding a spoon of pie ready for herself with the other. "It is all right. If you made a friend, that is worth all the worries." So yesterday was an actual day that happened. And he was gone or unavailable to his mother for several hours. He established as much. What came next was to find out whether any of the things did that proceeded her phone call. "So how is this friend of yours? Is she nice?"

He smiled. "Yes. "

"It was irresponsible of Alphys to just let you wander off for so long. I will have a word with her over this."

He knew there was no point in arguing. Mom was right anyway. As always. For now, while he had time, he had to focus on the bits of the previous day that he was more willing to believe. When he was made to wander through town and talk to everyone. Absolutely everyone. And he came up with someone that might get him further on that. "So how's uncle Rudy been lately?"

Merely hearing that name immediately lowered the corners of his mother's mouth. Bringing him up startled her and she shifted away a little. "Oh my..ahem. Fine. he is recovering I believe. But you should know." She took a sip from her too strongly flavoured tea. "He called to thank me for sending you over. It was nice of you to surprise him."

Not long after that, Asriel's alarm clock went off. Kris quickly got up, ran upstairs and stopped it before grabbing new clothes, another set of his wide collection of mutually identical, green striped shirts and brown pairs of trousers and heading downstairs to take a quick shower in the bathroom, too.

When he came out, clean and with new clothes, Mom was already back in her dress and coming down the stairs to get ready to head to school. He only noticed on the way out, that in their rush on the previous day, they had forgotten his school bag in the car. A sudden, deeply uncomfortable thought, but a fleeting one, since everything was fine.

Holding hands as family always did - their family at least - they walked through the morning light of their comfortable town. On the way his mother made sure to remind him several times to apologize to Mrs. Alphys when she got to class.

He didn't talk back at her for repeating herself, but by the time she was at it for the fifth time, she must have noticed him getting annoyed, seeing as she immediately stopped. Inside, with all the fellow students walking in and around, in front of everyone's eyes, she led him in by the hand and gave him his daily 'good luck at school' hug before moving on to prepare her own classes.

Only about half the class was there by the time he arrived. Only now did he notice they didn't even have enough chairs for everyone. Possibly didn't even do so yesterday either. He only minimally greeted Berdly and Noelle, who were early and fully awake as always. He was mostly absorbed in his own thoughts on how to proceed. While he went back outside to fetch two chairs from another classroom - one for Susie's desk, one for his own, he thought about ways to go about verifying more.

And upon bringing them back, placing the biggest one he could immediately find behind Susie's desk, he walked right up to Berdly and Noelle, who were still sitting at the windowsill next to Noelle's. "Hey. How is your project coming along?" Of course they were a bit confused about the question, but if it turned out Alphys didn't make anyone partner up yesterday, he could still fall back on the biology assignment that was still up and say he was referring to that instead.

As usual, the bird grinned. "We got it done before class was over. You better get going this time. It's due tomorrow and you were lucky enough to survive Susie yesterday. I don't think she's going to help you at all." So he was partnered up with Susie. Another part that did happen. This was reassuring.

He put on a smile, but he didn't answer. He didn't know how to feel about Berdly's comment about Susie being unwilling to help. On one hand, it somehow upset him, on the other, he couldn't blame him for thinking so. Going off of everything he - and Berdly - and the silent girl on the other side of the windowsill - knew and had seen of her, he really couldn't blame them for thinking that way. He for himself actually felt a lot more confident now. And she would be the last missing piece. The one part of the previous day he really, really, really felt inclined not to believe that it happened. And to his positive surprise, before Jocks or Snowy, Susie appeared.

Now with a school bag. Everyone else had their things neatly sorted out so that they had everything they needed for the day in their lockers, and as always, she took her seat right in front of him. She even greeted him and he greeted her back. He tried to not be too obvious about paying particular attention to her - and to stare at the pens and the block of paper he was sorting instead.

That was, until she turned around and very strongly, so much so that it was painful, pressed the tip of her index 'claw' into his right shoulder. First, he only raised his head slowly, then he quickly shifted to sit upright. Susie sat with her elbow on his desk and was pointing right at him and then herself with an evil grin that made him uneasy. She got a bit closer and began to whisper. "After classes?"

He preferred not to answer, he just smiled and nodded. With a smile that was, unlike most of the time, genuine. When he turned back around, he figured that this feeling wasn't uneasiness. He was excited. His back was slightly trembling from how excited he was. He was starting to believe it was real. Why would she interact with him this way unless it really happened? Or something similar. At the very least, they really did spend several hours together yesterday. Whether or not that consisted of fighting fantasy creatures in a magical land was secondary for now. Quietly enough to not be heard, he couldn't suppress impatiently tapping his foot while waiting for Alphys to come. She was late. Which wasn't unusual, but somehow now more than on any other day, he really noticed it.

And when she at last came, she looked more like she was stumbling in. As always with a jacket that didn't quite fit and a tie that wasn't quite tied properly. She even gasped because she almost tripped on her way to her desk. "Good morning everyone."

"Good morning, Mrs. Alphys.", everyone replied in sync like grade schoolers.

"Y-you're all here!" She noticed it as well. "...and...actually in one piece." That part, she whispered to herself, but Kris could guess it was something like that. In a demonstrative manner, she reached into a bag of her own and placed a box full of chalk on the table. She learned from her mistake. Biology class went over with nothing unexpected happening. But for the very next subject, physics, the one they were about to start off with yesterday until that abruptly ended for him, it wasn't case.

"Oh, so-u-uhm. Right class." Alphys slapped her claws together in a known attempt to give herself some new confidence. "I'm - I'm afraid I've got some bad news. We're going to call your current assignment short. You can hand in what you have if you want to..." As expected, Berdly and Noelle already had a neatly stapled-together pile of paper with all the results, how they got to them, and graphs to explain each problem laid out in great detail. Kris on the other hand, had nothing to show. And for a second or two, everyone was indeed staring at his desk.

"...but if you have nothing, that's okay, too. Just place them right here after class." Looking back, the choice of this person Ralsei spoke of in the dungeon, this 'player's, to use what little time he had left before going to bed early to start a conversation with EVERY SINGLE PERSON THEY COULD FIND was a bad decision and he really hoped this loss of control would never happen again.

Luckily for him, this hope would prove well-placed in the long run.

Then again, Susie didn't have anything either.

Alphys couldn't help but stare with a forced grin at all the upset students. "Sorry again for the inconvenience. Was a bit of a...surprising change of plans. But I already put together new papers for all of you." She pulled up another pile of sheets like she always did for group projects. On each one would be a list of problems you had to solve together with your partner, and the common result would be graded for both of you.

She went on while she walked from desk to desk to hand one to each student. "I'm going to need you to form new groups of two. Groups with partners other than your previous ones. We can't always work with the same people, right?"

Once done, she turned around to the class and was shrugging and forcing a smile onto herself. She was looking for approval and she got none. People didn't say anything, but you could feel it in the mood that filled the room. Even Kris slightly pressed at the back of Susie's chair to get her attention and see what she was thinking about it, and she just shrugged.

"O-okay. Why don't we just do it randomly?" She fumbled about with her bag again. Other teachers would have just either written scraps of paper with each student's name on them, or had the students write them, and then drawn all the names one by one. Mrs. Alphys on the other hand, for some reason, always had a little box of dice and a plastic cup with her and 'rolled' them instead, by assigning each one a number and then rolling the dice, loudly and again and again.

When her arduous exercise was finally done, she announced each name and had every pair of two form one group. He had to say, none of them really matched. All the pairs from before and from most of their assignments made sense in some way. They worked. However they did, Jockington and Catti did seem to hold up, but now Jockington was winding himself around one of Snowy's wings and Catti had to team up with Temmie's boiled egg. As for the four of them, Kris was teamed up with a now devastated blue bird, while Noelle got to look after Susie. Upon hearing it, very slowly, with terror in his eyes, Berdo turned around, with his lower beak hanging down.

Kris couldn't help but mimic Susie's previous shrug. Berdo snuck a glance at Noelle and then went back to glaring at Kris with his trembling index finger raised. Not even bothering to remove the tiny, loosely hanging feather that made his fingerpointing look a lot more awkward than it was supposed to. It all happened in a span of mere seconds, and as soon as he gave up and sighed, he opened his eyes and came along to sit at Kris' desk, with his smirky old face back to how it was supposed to be. "Hey there. Looks like it's the two of us now."

Kris maintained a slight smile, worried about what Berdly might read into it if he didn't, and agreed with his new colleague. Berdly on the other hand, placed his elbow on Kris' desk and shifted a little closer with his hand covering the other way and whispered. "But hey, on the flip side, you got rid of Susie, right?" Kris' smile was already vanishing.

"What even happened yesterday anyway? Got lost on the way to the supply closet? How does that happen? For hours?" He was beginning to put on this exaggerated smile that almost made his head look like it had a different shape and he had to catch his glasses to keep them from falling off. "Makes you wonder what you were even doing all this time."

On the outside, nothing about Kris' mannerisms changed. On the inside, he was now in overdrive. Assuming that either everything was true, or that they were on some weird substance-related trip, what excuse could he come up with to avoid Berdly bombarding him with innuendo for the rest of the year? "Uh..." he finally stammered. "...we didn't find any chalk, and then found out there was an empty classroom nobody is using."

At last, the smile was vanishing but he still had to look Berdly in those narrowing eyes. "Really?"

"Yes. With playing cards and a chess board, and a checkers board..."

Now the bird was raising his head and pointing at Kris with pistol hands. "Ah, now I get it. Wandering off and lazying about with board games all day, that's what you've been doing." He just raised a hand to fire a pistol hand at Berdly and take it down again to acknowledge he was right. This was in fact, the best thing he could say. He didn't believe the 'truth' himself. Not for a second. "Okay, I'm seeing how it is. Now let's take a look at what we got here."

The sheets were printed with more thin paper, which tricked them into believing it was one, when they were actually three. In fact, upon closer inspection, the new group assignment didn't only contain more than three times as many problems to solve, but they were much more difficult as well. At least one of them involved material they hadn't actually covered yet. And on top of it, they didn't have two days to complete it, but one.

Why was this sudden new paper so much more difficult than the previous ones? The one from before, he could sort of imagine completing with Susie if they sat down and did it. But with this one, other students were complaining from time to time and Berdly was clutching a pencil with his beak and twisting it, scratching pieces of wood off with little care. Even the two of them didn't really get anywhere with it, and when class was over, Kris was happy to think about something else.

And after that, and a few hours more, soon enough, the bells were ringing and their last class for today was over. With his things already packed, Kris almost immediately got up and went for the door. "Hey! Wait up!" Berdo was already calling after him, but Kris had little patience for him. "Where do you think you're going?" Susie, who had run past them, was now waiting for them in the middle of the busy hall.

She just plain told the bird: "To the supply closet."

She was very excited to go and led the two of them onwards down the hallway and into the one that led to the closet. Kris was excited as well, he just couldn't believe everything about travelling into a magical dark world. They were going to open the closet and it was just going to be a supply closet. "I can see where you're going.", the bird went on while still spurting after the two of them. "But why?"

Once they had passed most students and there wasn't anyone to really attentively listen in, she did turn around, but wound up stammering her answer. "Because there'll be a...well a...a thing! You just watch." Kris somehow felt skeptical about it. There wasn't going to be a 'thing', was there? With a proud grin, bearing her teeth, she marched up to the closet, grabbed both handles at once and pulled it wide open.

"Behold! The dark world!" And a mere half-second upon presenting it to him, her bravado was gone. "Oh wait, there's nothing there." What they had in front of them was just a supply closet, with boxes full of hygiene products, a few supplies for first aid, chalk, large crayons, and further down a lot of asymmetrical bottles of various detergents that were pointy at their top. The ground was full of pieces of fallen-down and broken off chalk. A feast for the kinds of people that liked to eat it. "No...there's nothing here."

Convinced that she was going off the deep end for good, Berdo folded up his arms and shook his head. "Of course there's nothing there." On the other side of it, but covered in shelves nailed over it, was a door that led to a corridor in the back.

That didn't stop Susie from kneeling down and scrambling around among those detergents and other cleaning utensils. "No, no, no, no, it was real! I could have sworn - Kris!"

She pointed right at him and he froze. She got up and came closer and closer until she loomed over him. A bit too close for comfort. "You remember it, too right? It must have been real."

He looked up at those jaws and stayed as not-panicked as he could. "I remember something. Why?"

"It couldn't have been a dream, it was way too...I made a friend in there. Little blue guy. What's his name?"

A little blue guy? Well for one, their recollection of what happened had a similarity right there. "Lancer?"

Immediately she stepped back and pointed at him. "See? It was real!"

He didn't seen quite convinced. Maybe she was just telling herself whatever answer he gave was correct. "Was there anyone else?"

At last, when he engaged her, she calmed down a bit. "Uh yeah, little guy in green. He was as much of a little wimp as you."

"And his name?"

"Ralsei!" All right, he was starting to get worried, and intrigued. How did she know this?

Berdly came around to place a hand on Kris' wrist to get his attention. "What kind of board games were you playing exactly?"

"Hey! Where are you heading off to now?" Kris began wandering off, down the hallway, to the classroom they came out of when all this was over. After he was a bit ahead, he stopped and turned around and soon enough, all three of them were on their way to the abandoned class room. "Okay, good idea. They'll all be where we left them."

When they opened the door, while the light from outside did reveal a little bit, Kris immediately noticed how it was very impractically designed given how from either of the two doors that led to it, you had to walk straight through the entire room in the dark, just to get to the light switch on the other side. The room was untouched. Everything was the same as before.

Berdly couldn't help but stand in the middle of the mess on the floor and look at Susie with his head tilted. "So, what exactly am I supposed to see here?"

A little confused and at a loss for words, Susie looked all over all the boards, board game pieces and playing cards strewn across the floor and the shelves of the cupboard. Kris walked straight past most of it and picked up a little, worn plush animal that lay next to a joker card off the floor. It was made to look like a cat, or some other mammal, with arms and legs like a monster, and with a button sewn onto its face, possibly to replace its right eye.

"Now wait a minute!" When she saw Kris take an interest in him, she started paying attention to the plush, marched right his way and pulled it out of his hand. "I recognize that face, it's Seam!"

Another face and name she recognized just like he did. If this was a dream, they were both having an at least near-identical dream. "But if this is Seam...then..." She knelt down to pick up one of the playing cards. A two of hearts. And she remembered the heart-shaped soldiers Lancer threw at them when they were in the purple fields. And Seam and the heart cards were both on a purple carpet.

Slowly, she began tracing a route through the room, along the checkers board with all the pawns, building block pieces and playing cards that led up to the cupboard and wound up walking over to it. Inside, she picked up one of the three rules cards that were strewn around. "If that's Seam, then that was the field and this is Card Castle."

"Really now? 'Card Castle'?" Berdly placed both hands on his waist and looked over to his silent partner, expecting the same smug dismissal. He on the other hand, was curious to see what Susie would find.

"If this is the castle, then those are the floors and that means this..." She reached into the upper shelf within the cupboard, past the half-open door, grabbed what she found and put a few cards back. From an area still visible from outside, she had pulled out and kept a jack of Spades that lay on another box of cards. But from around the corner, she found something that immediately drew Kris' attention. "What the hell is that?"

His horns! The little pinkish devil horns he used to wear when he was smaller. "Those look like mine."

She looked up at him with disbelief. "Say what now?"

"I used to have horns like that. They were from a Halloween costume. See?" He took it right out of her hand and tried putting on the piece. It didn't quite fit any more. But upon looking at the inside of the headpiece that connected the horns, he could still see his name, written on with nigh irremovable marker with his mother's handwriting. Those weren't just any pair of horns like his. They WERE his. When he originally lost them, he looked all over for them and they never turned up. How did they get here?

When he looked back up from them, he saw two monsters staring him down with a very wide smile on both their faces. Berdly wasn't a bird, he was a bird monster. And his beak deformed to match all the mean-spirited smiles it could throughout every school day. And now was no exception. "Krissy, Krissy. You didn't wear those at school, did you?"

He froze. And didn't say a word. A similar smile crept up the dragon girl's jaws while she looked down at him with her head still raised. "I'd believe it in an instant." He was absolutely upset, but at the same time, he had no idea how to react to this. He thought she was changing yesterday, but on the first chance to humiliate him, she turned on him again. Eventually, he clenched one of his fists and knocked it into Susie's upper arm.

"Oho." She immediately took two menacing steps his way. He backed off, but she kept following and staying a little too close for comfort. "Wanna try that again?" She smiled in a deliberate way that bore all her teeth, especially the upper jaw was right within his eyesight. They stayed like this for a while. Berdly just watched. "Naaah no worries." She backed off a little and began scratching Kris' scalp with her knuckle. Perhaps not as much about her had changed as he had hoped. "Come on, the least we can do is use this room."

When she turned around, one of the few times he actually looked at her when she had her back turned ever since yesterday evening, he noticed something. Something tiny that didn't quite fit with her. "Stop."

"What?"

"There's something in your hair."

"You're messing with me."

He looked her right in the eyes and simply shook his head.

That seemed enough to convince her, so she turned around again and started randomly grasping for whatever there was with her own hands. But she kept missing it, because she wither went through her hair to her right, or to her left. "It's in the middle." He eventually walked up to her himself and carefully reached closer to touch a single, very thin strand of hair. It was bound together by a tiny hairpin. Mostly flat and barely noticeable, but it was there nonetheless.

"Then get it off me already!" When he had pulled it off, she apparently felt the tug and release and turned around to examine it with him. Her hair was so voluminous and she had so little care for it, she must have not noticed it at all in all this time. The hairpin had a little image attached to it. An image of a scythe, with a purple-yellow striped hilt. "Now wait a minute!" She shrugged back for a moment. They both recognized the design.

If it wasn't clear to him before, this was definitive proof that their little journey through the dark world - and with it, the dark world itself, had really happened. A devilsknife. Like the one Jevil the nigh-unbeatable jester gave them as a trophy for 'beating' him. Either that or the design came from somewhere else and it only became the scythe an imprisoned fool used in a shared feverdream.

At least a shared dream was something he was more willing to believe than that it really happened. It also would have explained how everyone they met in the dark world was spread out here.

"All right, what am I supposed to see here?" Berdly had long settled for believing that Susie - and possibly Kris - had lost her marbles for good.

"Oh, you wouldn't get it, you weren't there." Now confident for herself, that it all really happened, Susie smiled with no shred of doubt.

The bird just turned his head Kris' way with one eye-brow raised further than the human expected him to be able to. "And you were there? What is she on about?"

A smile not put on, but a real one, crept up his face. "I'm not sure either."

"Okay, enough of this. Come on, Kris. We've got work to do. Time's short on this one. And I'm not letting you slack your way out of this, if I get my grades dragged down by you, you're going to suffer with me." He agreed, said goodbye to Susie, and left school with Berdly. Even now, Kris had trouble understanding why Berdly was acting this way.

For one there was how upset he got about Alphys re-shuffling the groups. So what if he didn't get to work together with Noelle for once? They were going to solve this. Somehow. On the other hand, something strange he noticed that seemed relevant here was the way he reacted yesterday.

If he didn't get to work on this with Noelle, being upset was still somewhat understandable. But yesterday, Noelle offered for the three of them to group up and he was very opposed to that as well. He didn't even sound hostile, but nervous rather.

Kris wasn't sure, but for the time being, by process of elimination, it had little to do with Noelle and instead, the least far-fetched conclusion was that Berdly really despised Kris. Then again, he was mean, but it didn't feel like he had a chip on his shoulder. Okay that wasn't true, he definitely did have one, but Kris didn't get the impression that it was directed at him.

They didn't stop marching, until they were far enough outside for the late summer sun to douse them in new warmth after the cold of the tiled school halls surrounded them before. "We're going to my place of course. You're not getting away from this." It dawned on him that Berdly wouldn't leave him alone until they were done with physics, and considering the difficulty and the deadline, he couldn't blame him either.

"We're not working in whatever mess you have for a home. I bet you don't even have a table or work desk in your room." There was that wide smile again. As usual, Berdly was right. Asriel's desk was only just big enough for his computer's utilities, you couldn't really work on it.

"Okay, I just have to do two things first." He turned around and ignored the bird's protestations about abandoning him. He was just heading over to Mom's classroom. And as expected at this time of the day and on this day of the week, she was here and not in the teacher's lounge. "Mom, I have some difficult school work and want to work on it at Berdo's."

"Ah, is that another friend?" She seemed touch, but he wasn't sure what seeing her like this made him feel.

"Something like that."

"I hope this other thing won't take so long, or you're going to have to stay overnight." Speak of the devil, Berdly had followed him here. What? He gave the bird a questioning look. "I'm serious. We can work for a lot longer like that."

He turned back to Mom, who understood that he was about to ask her if he could and nodded. She was still softened by him 'making friends'. "Of course, shall I drive you two home and pack some things together?"

He didn't want to inconvenience her like that. He could take the initiative. "I've got a key. I can go and..."

He was pushed aside mid-sentence. "Yeah, we'd very much like that." He stared at his clueless classmate, but all he could do was shrug. "Hey! If she's offering help, be thankful and take it." Unfortunately, Berdly didn't know what Mom helping entailed. Kris did.

"Actually, before we go home, I'd like to take a detour. I heard you know Sans."

"Yes, I may have visited his store." He didn't like how she was hoarding chocolate kisses when she knew those were his favourite.

"I promised I'd spend some time with his brother today."

"All right. You two go along. I will be waiting at home."

All three of them left got ready to leave school for the day. Mom went for the car and Kris went for Sans'. Berdly for some reason followed him. Once they were outside of Mom's earshot but on the way, he tipped on Berdly's shoulder to get his attention. He was silent, but Berdly had been his classmate for long enough to know that didn't account for much.

"I don't want you to drag down my grades. We're staying at my place overnight and pulling an all-nighter. No-one's going to bed till we're done. My parents aren't home, so they won't get in the way." Kris really didn't like the sound of that. "Oh come on, me and Noelle do that all the time." Really? That was one subject she avoided when talking to Kris. They had to wait for a bit before crossing the street. At this time of the day, it was a lot more heavily used.

"You have sleepovers all the time?"

"Of course! I thought you two were like family, did she never talk about that?" She really, really didn't. It seemed much too banal to keep secret from him, but he didn't have a lot of time to think about that, since they already arrived.

They didn't even need to approach the store's door, when a short skeleton in a hoodie came outside and quickly turned the recently added 'open' sign to read 'closed'. "hey there. didn't think you'd come, and now we got two."

"Of course."

"i'm really thankful for you guys doin' this. not sure how it'll go, but there goes nothing." He sped over the concrete in his pink slippers over to the taller wooden house, unlocked the door and led the two of them inside. It was a bit of a messy living room they first came upon. The table, the floor, the carpet, the kitchen floor in the distance, everything was full of big open books, wires and scraps of metal.

They all had to stare at the floor to avoid tripping on anything. "pap! pap i got you some visitors! hello?" He led them up the stairs. Both doors were closed, but one had a strange aura to it that shone in multiple colours, that Kris had seen somewhere before. The other, the first one you came across right after walking up the stairs, was plastered with a whole range of 'hazard' signs and other warnings not to enter.

From behind it, loud music was playing, consisting almost entirely of xylophone tunes. Without further asking, Sans opened the door and immediately had to cover his mouth and gesture the two teenagers to take a few steps back. Some very unhealthy-looking green fumes came out of the inside of the room, and soon thereafter, were sucked out of the room by vent shafts installed right above the door. Apparently, this wasn't the first time this happened.

"IT'S SAFE TO COME IN NOW!", they heard a loud, screechy voice announce. There were more fumes inside the room, and vents above to funnel them out. How in the world did he get away with this? "SANS, WHAT IS THIS?" Inside a smaller room, just as messy and stuffed to the brink with scientific-looking literature and machine parts, stood a skeleton the full size of a grown man, on his two legs as if alive, just like Sans, and wearing a buttoned-up lab coat and a white pair of trousers.

"got you some friends to spend time with. maybe get to know our new neighbours and all."

"SANS FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON'T NEED FRIENDS! I NEED RESULTS." He turned around to get back to working on something he seemed to be working on since before they came here. It was a lengthy contraption with white plastic plating at all sides, but its internal components had extended themselves to move the white casing apart which allowed the skeleton to make some adjustments.

He was about to begin welding a metal component, with sparks spraying everywhere, right above the wooden table, in a makeshift laboratory with a flammable carpet in a house made of wood. "IF I CAN JUST GET THIS METABOLIC ACCELERATOR TO WORK, WE WILL MAKE MILLIONS!"

Sans tried to take a step closer and gestured him to calm down. "pap, come on, let's get some perspective here."

Pap put the welder down and faced him. "HOW ABOUT IF WE GET SOME AMBITION INSTEAD?"

"pap let's just try to be normal, at least for a week."

"NONSENSE, NOW GIVE ME SOME SPACE AND LET ME GO BACK TO WORK."

Resigned, Sans just opened the door again and left. "idiot baby..."

"I HEARD THAT, YOU'RE THE IDIOT BABY! NOW NEVER WASTE MY TIME LIKE THIS AGAIN!" He was long gone, by the time Papyrus was done. He did acknowledge the two of them though. "I'M SORRY FOR WASTING YOUR TIME, LITTLE CHILDREN."

Berdly immediately raised a hand to correct him. "We're not little chi-"

"AS A CONSOLATION, TAKE THIS." He reached down beneath one of his tables and pulled up another lengthy contraption. It had a grip and a trigger at its end, a bit like a gun. Except it had no barrel, or anything to pull or manipulate to release it. "DON'T WORRY, IT'S PERFECTLY HARMLESS, LOOK!" he pointed at the wall to their left, but when he pulled the trigger, instead of firing something, a bright, golden light came out of its front end.

The brightest part of this light seemed contained in a slowly extending 'blade' like a light sword from a popular sci-fi series. It went on and on, until it hit the wall, then shone a little brighter. But that was all it ended up doing. The wall didn't catch fire or was welded through or melted or anything of that sort, so Papyrus turned it off again by pulling the trigger a second time.

"IT'S A PROTOTYPE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO CREATE A RAY OF SOLID LIGHT, BUT I NEED A SPECIAL KIND OF GLASS FIBRE THAT'S OUT OF BUDGET TO MAKE IT, SO IT'S USELESS." Both of the skeleton's guests exchanged a perplexed look. "GO AHEAD. I DON'T NEED IT."

The bird extended his hands to accept this unexpected gift. "Uh...thanks?"

"MY PLEASURE. AND TELL SANS NOT TO DO THIS AGAIN."

Perplexed and with little answers, they left the room and went down the stairs. "This something you do regularly?", the bird asked, only to receive another shrug for an answer.

When they arrived back at home, Berdly's beak dropped. Kris saw what they faced coming from a mile away. "Ah, you're already back." Mom was happy to see them. She had packed his bags. Four very, very big bags and was gesturing them to help her load them into the van.

"Mrs D...Toriel, he's not moving in with me, he's just staying overnight."

"Oh, I am aware. I just wanted to make sure he has anything he might need." They barely all fit into the vehicle and even after they were done, Berdly would spend the ride to his place squashed in his seat. While the two of them helped her, Berdly already had a very bad feeling about pulling an all-nighter with Kris.


	2. Dragon Roost Homestead

Love in Plastic

Chapter 02

The Dark Descent

* * *

 

When Berdly and Kris left the abandoned classroom, Susie didn't intend to leave immediately. She was too curious about the dark world. While Kris had spent the day keeping a cool head and repeatedly telling himself it wasn't real, Susie fawned over the idea like a little girl and was open about it in ways she wouldn't have been otherwise. And now that they weren't watching was no different.

She picked up a random card from the floor. A three of hearts. She stared at it, and , without thinking, started talking to it. "Hello?" Of course, it didn't respond. What was she thinking? It was just a card. Then again, maybe there was no point in overthinking it. She shot the card a wink and leaned down to the card to talk to it. "Hey good looking, what's cooking?" Again, no response.

Then, she heard something and froze. Upon looking up, she realized she got caught by the deer girl from her class flirting with a playing card. Best thing she could think of was to drop the card and pretend it didn't happen. "Um...", Noelle began. "...is this a bad time?"

It was best for Susie to keep her cool. She put her hands back in her jacket pockets. "No, what's up?"

"I wanted to ask if we should..." Surprised at what she found looking around in the room she was peeking into, she couldn't help but drift off from what she was about to say. "...what a mess."

"Can't be helped I guess."

"I - I actually wanted to ask if we should go back to do physics together - if you don't mind." She had walked up to Susie, but was visibly intimidated by her motionless stature. "B-but we could clean up this place and work here instead."

Actually, Susie did like that indeed. She remembered Seam saying the 'Lightners' abandoned them. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea if they changed that. "Sure, I'll get chairs." By the time she was carrying one of the slightly longer tables through the doorframe, Noelle was already done picking up all the cards from the ground and had placed them back with the other piles of cards.

"Okay. I - uhm." Gee, did this girl ever speak in full sentences? She wasn't like this in class. And she avoided looking Susie in the eyes too, or at least in their general direction. Instead, she stared at her bag, trembled, and eventually reached inside to pull out something other than the papers from this morning. "I...I got you something. It's for you."

Very hastily, she placed a cardboard box in front of Susie, and when the confused dragon peeled open the lid, she was all the more confused. Chalk. A lot of it. The 'present' was just a box of chalk.

"Uhm...thank you?"

Her in her own eyes very reasonable reaction worried the flustered girl. "Is it not - don't you like it?"

"No, it's just." She leaned a little closer, picked one up and started putting it in her mouth like a cigarette. "Why are you giving me a box of chalk? Is this about yesterday?"

She didn't mean to, but she appeared to terrify the girl. She threw up both hands and tried to dismiss it, and stuttered for quite a while before she could actually talk. "I - it's - I thought..." Her eyes were shooting left and right in search for an answer.

"You thought what?"

The deer lowered her head and got down to putting all the relevant school material on the table to work. "Never mind. It doesn't matter." Strange. Susie got the notion that she should bring this up when talking to Kris. To see if he had been ratting her out.

They got to work, but they only made progress very slowly. The longer Susie let Noelle talk, the more confident she became in doing so. But overtime, Susie got the impression that Noelle wasn't taking this seriously. She took ages solving basic stuff she could do in seconds when they were in class. Which made the entire exercise pointless because Susie wasn't taking this seriously either.

So with an increasing frequency, her attention drifted away from the actual subject matter and towards the cupboard and all the remaining chess- and other board game pieces still strewn on the floor.

"...and if we use this formula to calculate the acceleration and then construct a triangle to...hello?"

She was a bit shaken from being woken up from a trance thinking about yesterday. "Uh yeah. So..."

This time, for once, the deer wasn't nervous. She was pouting at Susie's lack of attention. "Are you even listening?"

"Yeah...nah. Not really."

"You know if you don't want to do this, we don't have to."

"Wait, what?"

"The material here is beyond what we're supposed to have done and there's too much of it to do in one day. I don't know what is going on, but I'm confident we won't be in trouble if it isn't all done tomorrow." She tried to give Susie a reassuring smile. "You seem pretty interested in those cards."

"Kinda."

"Should we take a break and play a game?" She got up and fetched the deck she had just collected, came back to her seat and began going through them all within a few seconds. "Okay, we can't use this deck."

"What? Why?"

"It's incomplete. There's no Queen of Spades, and no Joker."

"Wait, there was, right next to Seam."

Noelle was startled for a second. "S-Seam?"

"Yeah, Seam." She got up to fetch the plushie and placed it on the table when she sat down again.

Noelle had to cover her mouth and squee a little. "You gave the plush animal a name?"

"Pretty sure he alre - " For a moment, Susie shot Noelle a glare, even though the glare was more directed at herself. Just blurting out the truth would have made her look completely nuts and for some time, she had completely forgotten that. "...yeah, I gave him a name."

Only after that, she realized that admitting that she was interested in these playing cards and giving plushies names made her look like a complete nerd, she needed a scapegoat. "When me and Kris found this place, we found all the cards and he wanted me to give him a name."

"Oh. Seems like you two had an interesting day." Noelle had gotten up to fetch a new deck. There were a lot of them, all of them unopened.

"Boy, did we..."

She sat back down and began to shuffle them. She did so with so much of a routine, she didn't even need to look at them and was looking as Susie instead. "So what game do you want to play? Poker? Jass? Go fish?"

"Whatever you know the rules of, I never really played with cards."

"Go fish then. Let's keep it simple."

While Noelle was still busy shuffling cards over and over, Susie couldn't help but wonder: "Why do you know so much about playing cards anyway?"

"They used to be a hobby of mine. Playing cards, reading cards, I used to read my way through all sorts of rule sets and guides. I even drew a whole set of tarot cards of my own. I could bring them to school tomorrow and read your fortune."

"I never heard you talk about that before."

Slowly, she shrunk back and started looking the other way. "It felt like a wasted effort in the end, so I sort of lost interest."

"Why, what happened?"

Noelle kept looking away, but eventually considered shuffling done at last. "Nothing. Nothing happened."

* * *

The house Berdly lived in, quite a bit to the west from where Kris usually wandered around, was five stories tall. A single-family house with five floors, and each one with at least one balcony. The sky around it was still pretty clear. "Let's not waste a second!" Berdly was very impatient. Kris hoped he wasn't going to be very impatient for the next eight or so hours on end. The three of them were barely enough to carry all the bags. They were quite heavy. What did Mom put in those?

"Maybe, I could meet your mother as well?" Toriel followed the two all the way to the front door, where Berdly fumbled in the pocket of his shirt to fetch the key and unlock the door.

"Missed her by a few hours. We're all on our own."

"Oh." She stopped and stared at Kris. "All on your own?"

"Yep."

"Nobody else?"

The bird raised an eyebrow. Kris knew he was noticing how used Mom was to keep an eye on Kris every step of the way on everything he did. And he worried - correctly - that Berdly would use this to make fun of him later down the line. "Well, there's my little sister, if that counts."

"Shouldn't someone look out for you? Do you want me to spend the night here as well?"

Annoyed, Berdly picked up and threw away a feather that hung over his right eyebrow. "Done this more often than I can count, it'll be fine."

While the bird was already carrying one of the bags further inside, Mom grabbed Kris by the shoulder and once he faced her, by both. She had a very urgent look on her face. Not angry, concerned was a better way to describe it. "Please, be good. If you need anything, do not hesitate to call. I will be right at home, I can come by any time." Kris nodded. "And please, please. No more extended disappearances."

He told her not to worry. They hugged and he made his way after Berdly with another bag. "And be sure to open the blue one!", his mother called after them with her van's door already open. With all the bags inside, Kris immediately proceeded to doing as she had told. Ham sandwiches. And some with salami. In that short time she had, she somehow managed to pack all these bags and make sandwiches.

"Perfect." Berdo picked one out. It was still wrapped in wrapping film. He squeezed it a bit and saw the butter ooze out a bit. "A bit fatty. But then, what did I expect? You having a good diet?" In spite of what he just said, he took them all upstairs and opened one for himself to eat anyway. A carpet was covering the stairs. For the time being, Kris only brought his school bag along while following his classmate upstairs.

The ground floor, when he peeked past the open doorframes, consisted mostly of unused rooms relegated to storage for outdoor utilities like bicycles, garden chairs and tables, a grill, garden tools and so on. The first floor looked much more like what he expected. The living room, kitchen and dining room made up the entire floor. Here, they stopped to put the sandwiches in the fridge.

Kris followed him to see if Berdly had anything worthwhile other than the sandwiches to eat, but was immediately shouted at, the moment he reached for a familiar and very tasty-looking pastry. "Hey! Don't touch that!"

Rather than immediately retracting his open hand, Kris froze in place. "I assume it's yours."

"Noelle's."

"Noelle keeps her food in your fridge?"

"No, she made it. And you're not going to touch it, now get away from there." Regular sleepovers, baking those crusty pieces with creamy goodness on the inside for him, how much involvement did Noelle have with this guy? Either way, he probably had best not to antagonize Berdly any further, so without a word, he closed the fridge, picked up a bottle of water and two glasses from the cupboard and put them in the bag to carry it along as they headed further upstairs.

The entire next floor save for its bathroom, consisted only of office space. Neatly set up desks with computers, racks of cds and other old disc types, printers, scanners and a faxing machine. And a pattern he noticed by now, was on each floor, there was at least one piece of furniture covered in little statues and paintings that looked like they were from the middle east, the far east, from all over the world. "There we are." The next floor had several rooms and a little bathroom of its own.

Kris assumed one of them belonged to his little sister, going by the pink painted walls, plastic house and the poster advertising something kitschy involving pastel coloured horses, as well as the little blue chick walking out of it in her pajamas. "Berdo where's Scott?" She was carrying a 'Debbie' brand plastic doll under her arm. It was modeled to resemble an unnaturally tall human woman with very long legs, long blonde hair and wearing some kind of work uniform.

"Hell if I know where Scott is." her brother just snapped back at her. 'Scott' was the trademark male doll that was usually part of a set with all the 'Debbie' dolls. Their height made sense with the dollhouse in the girl's room.

"Could you look for him?" She looked a little helpless standing there.

"We'll see, now leave me alone."

All Kris did was slowly raise a hand to wave at the girl and greet her. "Hi. I'm Kris.", and then proceed to follow 'Berdo' again while he was greeted back.

The very first thing Kris heard Berdly do, while he was still coming in, was lock something with a key. Berdly's dedicated room, which from the one bed, Kris could tell was all his own, must have been twice as big as his and Asriel's. It had a tiny oval carpet in the middle that must have been there only for decorative purposes. One side had two large windows that doubled as balcony doors. The other had regular windows and a long, long table along the entire side of the wall.

The corner he had been able to see from outside had his bed with a cleanly painted white frame. What surprised him was that rather than having the kinds of things he expected under the bed, all that was there upon looking closely was another mattress. In the corner opposite to the beds were two humongous red boxes. They had their lids on, but whatever was in there, there must have been a lot of it.

"Let's not waste any time." Berdly placed all his paperwork on his desk and Kris, sitting quite a bit to the right of him, did the same. He laid out all the loose sheets of paper with school notes he had amassed in the course of the day's classes and began to sort them. "Hey!" As a few of the pages fluttered a little too close to a stack of little plastic shelves that stood on the table, an angry bird near-shouted and pointed at him. "Be careful. I don't want your stuff to get mixed up with that."

Kris remained silent, slowly looked over to the plastic shelves and pushed them a little further to the side so there was no danger of anything getting mixed up, even if the mess had turned that ridiculously big. Then when Berdly wasn't looking, half in jest, and half out of curiosity, Kris' hand wandered slowly over to the plastic shelves only to be forcibly pushed onto the table. "Stop that." Now he couldn't resist biding his time to check what secrets were hidden in there later.

Once he had sorted everything that wasn't relevant to their project to their respective binder, he was ready and they could get to work. It was much easier, now that they could easily look up everything they needed on the internet with Berdly's computer, sometimes with explanations that were more comprehensive and to the point than what the school material gave them. And Mom wasn't kidding when she asked him to keep his phone on.

She did call to ask if he was fine and whether he needed anything. And whether he and Berdly had changed their mind and wanted her to come over, or if he wanted to come back home early. There was a lot of time for her to ask a lot of questions, because less than an hour after each of her phone calls, she called him again. This wasn't normal, even for her. She knew exactly where he was. Why was she so worried now?

Berdly wasn't as impatient with that as Kris was afraid he'd be. But that had other reasons. "Berdie! Did you find him?"

"No, we're busy." This was his first interaction with his tiny little sister ever since they got to work. Or rather tried to. Since then, from time to time, she would go upstairs or downstairs to look for her toy. When she did, her brother regularly followed her to check on her to make sure she didn't do anything dangerous. When he was gone all the way to the ground floor, Kris finally reached over to pull out one of the many sheets of paper in this stack of shelves he was supposed not to touch.

It was, just as the 'math' marker at the shelf he grabbed from advertised, a sheet with notes on math problems in Noelle's handwriting. And the same went for any others he went through. No love letters, no naughty stories, not even some doodles. That explained the third glass and toothbrush in this level's bathroom with 'N' written on it. She had her own shelf for school notes, her own toothbrush, her own mattress, how much time did Noelle spend here with no parents watching?

And yet he knew from things she had said on the previous day, when his choices weren't his own, that she was more interested in Susie than Berdly, so for all he could tell, they were nothing more than a perfectly innocent, tight-knit working team of aspiring academic prodigies in a sea of suburban mediocrity.

Still, something seemed off to him about this. If he hadn't visited the hospital and talked to Noelle after that, both against his will, he wouldn't have even known what he knew. This constant within the previous day started feeling like it was a blessing along with being a curse.

When Kris just got done with another phone call from Mom, he could hear and feel rumbling from upstairs. And shouting. "He's scared! He ran away! What if something bad happens to him?", the girl screamed while wrestling with her brother over whether she got to climb the stairs again.

"He's not scared, he's a piece of plastic!"

"You're so mean!" Once finally back in her room, Berdly knelt down and held her by both shoulders. "Look. Just go to bed. I'm sure wherever you left him, he'll still be there and he will turn up sooner or later." She teared up a little, but she was tired enough to rub her eyes, turn around and go to bed. "Phew. So much for that!" The increasingly strained bird wiped some sweat off his forehead, adjusted his slipping glasses and removed a stray feather from his otherwise still flawless shirt.

He gave Kris a nod. "Come on then. We've still got work to do." Berdly's - and Noelle's approach to doing these projects was to solve all of it on separate notes, then compile the path to the solutions on a presentable set of sheets with nothing struck through, erased or otherwise altered.

Then - because that usually ended up with corrections too - repeating the same process at least once until they were confident in all the problems being solved correctly. Which was why them doing it this way took a lot longer than Kris originally expected it already would.

Eventually, the orange evening light made way for the dark of the night, and the two of them had long opened the window and dimmed Berdly's table lamp enough that the only thing you could really see, was whichever piece of paper was directly under it. That was when yet again, at twelve o'clock in the night, Mom called. Now, for once, Berdly showed signs of his patience with her wearing off.

The moment he heard the phone vibrate on the table, his feathers stood up. "Does this woman ever actually sleep?" He glanced over at Kris, who didn't like what he was hearing. "What?"

It couldn't be helped. He knew Berdly was right, this was going a little bit overboard. He gestured Berdly to be quiet, lay both arms on the table and buried his face in one of his elbows before picking up. The moment he did, he only made muffled noises that resembled what he was 'saying'. "Hmmph Mph.", he began.

As expected, Mom's voice had a worried note to it. It almost felt like she was expecting trouble and was relieved to be proven otherwise. "Oh, I am sorry. Did I wake you up?"

"Mhmph."

"I am sorry. It is good to know you're all right. Good night, Kris."

"Gnph nph, Mph." And with this, she had hung up.

Berdly's closed beak was torn into a very wide grin and he raised a hand pointing at him like a pistol. "Didn't think you had it in you, you little Momma's boy."

When they just thought they had some rest from their distractions, someone knocked on the door. "Berdie..." Of course it was her sister. The phone vibrating on the table must have been loud enough to wake her up. "I can't sleep. I miss Scott." With narrowed eyes, Berdly stared back at Kris and sighed. "All right, you go back to bed, we'll go look for him."

Since she had already looked in several places around the house without finding him, they figured to look in Berdly's room first, Kris pulled out what he could only assume was Noelle's mattress to see if Scott was under Berdly's bed. No such luck. Berdly opened the two huge red boxes, with the lids still concealing to Kris what was inside them, their search started off smooth. Of course, that was until Kris was shouted at again. "Stop! Step right back."

He was being very strict, and Kris suspected it had something to do with his hand being half a foot away from the grip of the very tall closet next to the red boxes. "Aw, not that it matters, it's locked anyway. But either way, don't go touching other people's closets. It's rude." All right, maybe he had a point. "It's not going to be there anyway. " Kris shrugged it off and followed Berdly while they started looking in other places around the house.

They searched in places like under the sofa in the living room, under the table in the dining room, within cupboards in the kitchen, in those pieces of furniture with the statues, it wasn't anywhere. They tried the office rooms and all sorts of places, there. Nothing.

At that point, a thought occurred to Kris that he immediately vocalized. "So what if it actually is in the closet after all?" That kind of big closet in your room wasn't something you just kept locked at all times, and Kris was convinced it was the thing Berdly locked for this particular occasion, the moment he entered the room right before Kris did.

"It won't. She wouldn't open it. She knows better." They tried the office rooms a little more and found nothing. Kris only thought it to himself this time. It was going to be in the closet, wasn't it? They even searched the parents' bedroom, with all of the cupboard and everything.

He wasn't there. He really was going to be in the closet, wasn't he? They even went all the way downstairs to search the storage rooms full of outdoors they had to get out of the way while searching, where the mess was so tall, it only ended where their heads began. They spent so long searching everywhere for that doll, Kris was afraid to even look at the time.

For lack of ideas where else to look, they were already on the way back to Berdly's room, so perhaps this was a good opportunity for Kris to bring it up again. "I really, really think he's in the closet."

"Ugh, fine!" He really sounded annoyed now. Kris already saw how saying something was a bad idea. "But..." He stopped barely outside of his room, when Kris stood just around the corner from where he would be able to see the closet door. To not let things get too sour in the middle of the night, he dropped the curiosity for the time being and did as he was told. "Stupid momma's boy, it's not going to be in there, nobody touches...wait!"

He heard him unlock the closet with a key he must have had on him. What followed was a brief moment of silence, in which Kris felt like the room got colder, and some shadow began covering the walls. Then, when he was still around the corner and unable to see what was going on, he clearly heard, Berdly slide against the wood, which was followed by a strange thud. "Where's - help! There's no floor!"

When decided to ignore the bird's wishes, he just caught him hanging off the entrance to his closet. Scared for his life. "What's going - help!" He tried to rush closer to help him, but by the time he got there, Berdly's fingers were sliding off and leaving behind loose feathers. Kris did try to reach down to catch his hand, but he simply failed. The bird, screaming off the top of his lungs for help, fell down into the endless darkness in his own closet. No, this couldn't be happening.

He reached into the dark of the closet and wound his hand around. If he wound his left arm right around the right side of the frame, he could move his hand 'outside' of the closet, while still being inside. He started to realize what was going on, and that he had no choice but to jump after him.

And fast.

He balanced off the ledge with the middle of his feet, held onto the frame with his hands, until he was in a position where he could try to soften his fall. But in the end, he had to let go, so he pushed himself off the ledge. Immediate panic grabbed him by the spine and part with intent, part out of reflex, he pulled his arms and legs forward and bent them a bit. The cold wind against his whole body made it terrifyingly clear to him how fast he was going.

He regretted going after Berdly, but now it was too late. Then, he crashed on solid ground. Everything hurt. His whole body was in pain. He lay there for a while, not sure whether he even could get up. But when he tried, he could and moving all the joints that should have been crushed the hardest, he realized he was perfectly fine. One by one, he checked every part of his body. Even balanced on his forefeet to make sure those were okay. Nothing was broken, there weren't even any real wounds.

He was only staying in place when checking for injuries. He couldn't see after all. It was almost pitch black all around him. Then again, that wasn't entirely true. The only things he could see, were the pale-greyish floor and his own hands. He couldn't even see where the light source was that made it visible, it was as though there was none. The ground wasn't even, in fact it was very steep. Standing on it and not sliding down was easy, because it took some effort to even get up.

The ground was very sticky, but he noticed it wasn't that there was something sticky on the ground, it was the ground itself. It went too deep to be something 'on' the ground that didn't drip off the ledges to his left and right. Only now, that he was here, in the silence and the dark, wandering down a sticky slope, did he have time to really think about this in a way he couldn't when he was chasing after Berdly or feared for his life. The dark world was real.

All the way until now, he had settled on believing it was some kind of shared dream with Susie to explain how he remembered things about it that matched with what Susie believed. He shouldn't have been so afraid of believing what he saw with his own eyes, just out of fear of putting people off. Come to think of it, Susie was convinced it was real from the start. Maybe it was time to start trusting himself - and others - a little more.

He stared down at his hands. He was equipped with metal gloves, and his skin was blue again. There was no doubt. He was wearing the same armor he did in Ralsei's and Lancer's kingdom. And not far from where he had landed, he already saw something. A sparkling white light, similar to many he had seen last time.

He went closer to slowly approach it. There were only very, very few of those in the real world, the 'light' world. Lights that no-one else could see. He reached closer and touched it, and knew, if anything really bad happened, he could always go back to now. Not just 'here', but 'now'. As if whatever bad things happened had never happened at all.

Wandering through the dark, he eventually spotted a silhouette. Upon coming closer, it wasn't a silhouette. In the darkness that surrounded them, the figure's orange clothes were brightly visible. Dressed in a not too tight, formal suit, with a jacket, a tie, matching shirt and suspenders. He was wearing a vintage bowler hat and even his feathers shared the attire's bright orange colour instead of his usual blue.

It was Berdly, and he was standing at the edge of the platform and staring off into the dark. "Kris?" Kris walked up to him to stand beside him and stare into the abyss like he did. "Where are we?"

"I'm not sure myself. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I don't even believe it myself."

Berdly set off to continue down the slope. "Cut that out, if you know what just happened, just say it. Am I dreaming? Is this a dream?"

He shrugged together when Kris took him up on the offer and pinched him. "You want to know what me and Susie really were doing yesterday?"

"...sure?"

"We were here. I think. A place that's a bit like this. Not quite the same, but yeah."

The slope just ended blending into a wooden platform attached to a much, much bigger wall that reached further in all directions than they could see. On the platform stood a tiny wooden hut with green leaves for a roof. When they left the sticky slope, and carefully stepped onto the wooden boards, something stirred within the hut.

Something came around to peek outside. A tiny creature with even more tiny green arms. It consisted mostly of large, wound-together red petals and had a face right on them. "Hey there, little fella..." Berdly tried getting closer to the creature. "...could you tell us where we..."

"Stranger danger!" The creature just took off as fast as it could with its tiny feet. It ran away from the hut, behind it and onto another slope behind the house. They tried chasing it. "Wait! We just want to know where we are!" But that thing was fast. They could barely keep up. It didn't stop until it came by three green stalks that somehow just peered up past the left edge of the slope. Two of them already had similar sets of red petals mounted on top of them.

The little creature jumped on the third one, turned around so its back pointed at Berdly and Kris, jumped up in place and upon hitting the stem, its legs sank into it. Then, all three stalks began to move about. All three trembled and one by one, the wound-together rose petals opened up horizontally to reveal very carnivorous-looking mouths with sharp teeth. Two of the roses growled at them, while a third one barked.

Then, something rocked the platform and almost sent the two stumbling over just from the imbalance, hadn't their feet been practically glued to it. Large paws and a large body, all of which were made up of thorny vines, climbed onto the slope and got in their way. All three heads belonged to that one body.

Berdly actually did stumble back from the shock so much, he fell over backwards and wound up with his hands stuck to the ground for a moment. "Geez laweez! What is that?" The growling roses foamed at their mouths like rabid dogs. Kris struggled to come up with a name for it on the fly. It was a little bouquet of roses that barked, so a barquet? Then again, it didn't double as much as a dog, but more as a cerberus. So a Roserus?

Nevertheless, that thing looked hostile. Kris took a battle stance and swung his hand to summon his red sword. "Wait!" The bird was getting up again, but he had no weapons. "How'd you do that?"

"I don't know, I just did. Don't you have a weapon to draw? Just reach for it."

"Do I look to you like some weirdo who carries weapons around? Wait.." It wasn't until then, that he realized that under his coat, he wore a holster. And reaching for it and drawing what he found did indeed led to him having a pistol in his hand. It wasn't the kind of gun you expected, it didn't seem like you could refill it with ammunition anywhere. It was a dark red, one-handed firearm with a roundish design that was the widest where grip and barrel met.

There wasn't much more time for introductions though, since the rabid Roserus already came closer and launched its middle head right the still confused bird's way. Kris jumped almost in the way, to get close enough attack it and severely injure the Roserus' neck.

If he wasn't going to move, they were going to have big trouble with this thing. "Do something!"

Berdly shrugged. "What? I can't just shoot it!"

Kris figured that he had to go about this differently. As soon as he caught the beast's attention, he patted both his ankles to beckon it to come closer like a dog. It simply barked all the more. This didn't seem like it worked. He turned back to Berdly. "You can, just do it! Take aim and shoot!"

Unsure what he should do, Berdly finally pointed his weapon at one of the heads with both hands. The moment he had his arms stretched out and aimed at the creature, a little circle lit up around the head, along with a reticle. Then, a bigger circle appeared around the smaller one and shrank down. When he pulled the trigger, it fired a glowing bullet at the creature's head that dug its way through the petals. The painful cry that followed, showed them that it was working. The attack actually hurt the creature.

The Roserus stumbled backwards and was on the retreat, when Kris pursued it and took another swing. This time, he cut right into its main body. Thorns broke off the vines, floated up in the air, and then shot right Berdly's way. And Kris knew at this point, that Berdly would waste too much time thinking about it, to actually dodge the attack. He reshaped his sword into a shield, and rushed over to Berdly to block all the thorns. "You have to start dodging attacks!"

Berdly just snapped right back at him. "How many times have you done this before?"

"Once - sort of."

Now that they had it intimidated and Berdly at least had attacking figured out, they continued to injure it while it retreated down the platform. It was still a strenuous fight for Kris, because every time a new wave of thorns appeared, he had to either alert Berdly to get him to actually move out of harm's way, or block them with his own shield and sometimes even get hit by a few anyway. The more they swung and fired at it, the further it retreated.

They weren't sure how long they had to do that, but eventually, the creature stopped, roared, and lowered its legs. Then, with a force that rocked the entire platform they were on, it launched itself into the air and took a leap right into the endless depths below. They didn't even feel or hear the impact when it presumably hit the ground. At last, it was quiet again.

"Phew, good thing that's over." Berdly sighed as well, but he stopped. Kris tried turning around and encouraging him to follow. Not that Kris knew where they were going, but moving ahead was better than just staying in place forever. "I'm sorry, but we need to move on."

He never really calmed down, instead, he stared at Kris. He was so furious, his frowning beak was trembling. When Kris was going back and forth between looking back to see if Berdly was following, and moving ahead, he had to stop, when Berdly screamed at him. "Kris, will you get back here and explain to me what the hell is going on? What was that? What is all this?" He pointed at the void beneath them and a foot he lifted.

He was now wearing shoes. Matching in colour with the rest of his getup and made specifically to fit his feet. "What is that? Why do I have a gun? Scratch that!" He reached under his coat on the other side to pull out another weapon almost identical to the first one. "Why do I have two guns? Why do you have a sword, and what are you even wearing?"

Perhaps he couldn't be rushing this like with Susie. He had an easy start to get used to the dark world, because Susie was a simple person. A brute that just attacked everyone and didn't question her own motives, let alone questioning anything strange about her environment. She just acted without thinking. Berdly was the polar opposite and losing his cool over a lot of open questions that Kris didn't know the answer to.

So all he could do, was his best at trying to calm down. He marched right towards him, grabbed him by both shoulders, and gave him a stern look. "Listen. I know this might be confusing to you, I know I don't have all the answers but we're going to get through this. We are going to go home, we are going to find your sister's toy. Everything is going to be fine in the end. But I need your help for that."

It did calm him down a bit. Not as much as Kris hoped, but it did. He was still very upset with him. "At least give me the answers you do have."

"That's a bit difficult. This isn't really the same as being in the closet with Susie."

"Uh..."

"I mean, this looks different from where we ended up. There are no smooth purple walls with black goop."

"...smooth purple 'walls'..."

"Yes, and there were...things wiggling around."

"...things wiggling around, huh..." Berdly gave him an increasingly strange look. And for the love of him, Kris couldn't put together why.

"Yes, and this white stuff that blows up when you touch it too much."

Berdly raised a finger. "Okay wait, stop, serious question: Are you messing with me right now?"

They stared at each other for a bit until Kris started to realize how this was sounding. "Wait, no, I mean that's what was around us instead of this." He had enough trying to explain it to Berdly, he'd only hear what he wanted to hear anyway. "You know what? Let's talk this out another time, I'll draw every bit of it when we're back, it will make sense."

"I don't want to see drawings of what things you and her have been wiggling around in a closet." Kris began to cover his face with his hands, but he didn't bother to respond to it. "It's bad enough just imagining what and who you might be drawing as it is."


	3. Christmas Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once they have come to grips with their arrival in the Dark World, Kris and Berdly venture forward to find a way back out of it.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 03

Christmas Town

* * *

Susie and Noelle spent a long time just sitting in that classroom playing card games. Susie played it cool, but it was fun to her. It felt almost like being in the dark world again, and playing with all those citizens they had met. Probably because even though they were other cards they were playing with, something like that was actually happening here. After the second party of Go Fish, Noelle couldn't help but notice Susie sneaking a glance at the cupboard from time to time.

She just couldn't help but think about what was up with Lancer and all the others and in a way, Noelle caught onto it. Once she gathered the cards to shuffle them at the end of the party, she brought it up. "Is...is something wrong? Is this boring you?"

That was what it took for Susie to snap out of the trance staring at the upper shelf with that incomplete deck. "Oh, what? No, no, it's just..." She got up and headed over to pick up the deck and bring it back to the table. "You said this deck is useless, right?"

Noelle was frozen on her chair, unsure of what she wanted. "Yes...it's incomplete. There's plenty of whole decks right behind it."

The dragon girl opened the 'Bicycle' brand box and spread out the deck in her hand. "That means nobody's going to play with it."

Still frozen in motion otherwise and with both eyebrows raised in confusion, the deer girl nodded. "Yes..."

Susie raised her head. "You know what? I'm stealing this deck then. It's mine now."

This made Noelle more awkward than it should have, and she tried to laugh it off. "All right. I - I suppose it isn't as if someone would miss it. Or notice."

With one hand, Susie pointed right at her. "Exactly." With the other, she continued to slide the cards along so she could give them all a quick glance. "So, bear with me." By now, Noelle was a bit less off-put and shuffled back closer to the table to pay her more attention. "So imagine if these playing card decks were kingdoms. With people. All the cards are people actually."

"Okay..."

"I can't really figure this one out. Imagine every card was a person, and the king..." She pulled out the king of spades and placed him on the table. "...the king had a son. A prince. Who would it be? The ace?"

She pointed an ace of spades at Noelle, who shook her head. From the looks of it, she was back in her comfort zone by now. " 'Der Bube'"

"What?

"It's the Jack. The German word used for 'Knaves' or 'Jacks' translates to 'boy'. Which can mean the King's 'boy'."

"Oh." She shuffled through the cards, kept the Jack in one hand and put the rest of the deck in the box. It depicted a young human man with blond hair, blue eyes and an elegant mustache, smooth skin and wearing some expensive looking clothes with intricate golden patterns on it. She could only grin when looking at it. So gracious, so clean, so well-kept. This didn't look like Lancer in the faintest.

"What's wrong? What's so funny?"

Susie laughed, and it proved contagious. "It's nothing, I was just thinking of someone."

* * *

Wandering through the dark on a pale, sticky floor, Kris and Berdly finally saw something in the distance. A few small, faint lights. It was impossible to tell from here what they were. When they came closer, eventually, their path on this platform ended and made way for a seemingly transparent ground.

It felt like walking on solid, yet smooth glass, but the faint lights, maintained as it appeared by glowing crystals mounted on floating chandeliers, reflected in various glittering patterns beneath them, so there was more beneath the immediate floor under their feet, and it was cut in certain pieces to reflect light from above. The area was surrounded by very tall walls in three directions.

The one they came from was the only one not walled off. What was more, immediately beneath each chandelier was a table, along with a few chairs.

Berdly stayed towards the middle of the hall, while Kris preferred to wander along the walls and explore. There were corridors that led away from the hall they had gotten to, one leading into each side wall. And opposite from the direction they came, there was a double staircase that converged onto a ramp to walk onto the platform above.

He was a bit on edge, because twice while exploring the hall, he thought he saw a shadow somewhere around a corner, only for it to vanish before he could come closer. Then, in the middle of the hall, above one of the tables, Berdly spotted something. A little scrap of paper, dangling off of a string from above. It read 'sit here'. He called his classmate. "Hey! There's something here!"

Still careful, looking around all the corners and over his shoulder all the time, he very slowly followed the bird's suggestion and came closer to the table Berdly stood at. By the time he arrived, the note had disappeared. When he did though, he heard something and was alarmed enough to draw his sword. All around from above, bright lights turned on that revealed the white walls painted over with brightly coloured patterns in red and green, with traces of orange and brown here and there.

From all the corridors, rows of creatures came in. They were similar to the Roserus from before, plant creatures consisting of wound-together vines and stems with leaves and thorns, but this time, they had two legs and two arms, and faces on the buds and blooms they had for heads. They were dressed in extravagant dresses that resembled that of aristocracy in the western renaissance.

And other than the Roserus, they came in red roses for heads, pink roses for heads, tulips, lilies, and a lot of others in bright colours that he didn't recognize by name. They were dancing in sync while they moved inside in a line that never broke formation save for turning and forming a wide circle around the tables. All the while spreading confetti from little boxes they carried with them.

Garlands of pinewood twigs outfitted with bells and red cloth were dangling down from above, apparently along an intricate structure that more flower people from above were steering. As well as regular letter-shaped ones that simply read 'Merry Christmas'. Then, more came down the stairs. Never breaking their dance, but taking a wide step to the outside and dancing pirouettes in place, the dancers made way for the musicians to pass the circle and get inside it.

Three trumpeters, a saxophonist, a few more carrying the parts of an entire drum set and setting it up where the other musicians came to a halt, and one plant creature with a bass. And once further inside, they began playing their instruments to a loud and lively festive tune, together with a pianist who was accompanying their music from above. In fact looking at it now, the upper floor wasn't so much a floor as a set of platforms and catwalks that was merely connected to the staircase.

There even were windows so you could see some of the plant creatures steering the garlands and making adjustments to the entire complicated-looking getup occasionally wave at them.

And finally, one more plant creature came gracefully dancing down the stairs, donning a clean, black suit with a white shirt and a tie as deep red as his rose-shaped head. He had a mustache and another rose in his upper suit jacket. He greeted the two with his arms spread wide and an unbelievably happy smile. "Bienvenue, mes amis! Velcome to Christmas Town!" Both parties, visibly confused, stared at the approaching man.

"I would 'ave never thought that we would receive not one, but three guests in one day! Excusez-moi if our performance is too much of a surprise. Ve have waited for so long!" Gradually, Kris started considering it safe to put down his weapon and sit down. Very excitedly, the man shook one of the two visitors' hands with both his own.

The two of them though, exchanged some very confused looks, until Kris decided to speak up. He was thinking about outright asking them what all of this was, but considering the effort they made to put on a show for the two of them, he stopped himself at the last second. It would have been inconsiderate. "This is a very...impressive reception."

The suited rose gestured all around them with an open hand. "Mais oui! Everyone of our performers 'have been preparing for ze grand performance all zeir lives! For when Christmas is finally 'ere."

"But it isn't Christmas."

This didn't seem to bother him much, he waved that right off. "Christmas is not 'ere. But ve vant to be ready for when Christmas is finally coming." He looked around to ensure none of the other plants were close enough to hear, and then leaned a little closer to speak with a lowered voice. "Zat and ve're desperate, we welcome all guests. Just let us 'ave this."

"Desperate? Christmas is only in a few months."

"By now zis town was built by ze lightners a year ago. To perform when Christmas arrives. Since then, ve 'ave been waiting for generations for Christmas to come, but in all zis time, Christmas never came. Is strange, hein?"

"You've been waiting for Christmas for a whole year?"

"C'est vrai. Ve are happy for every visitor to practise our performance with. And quelle surprise, before you, ve 'ad another visitor!" He turned around to look through one of the glass windows onto the mechanic upper part of the hall. "Is safe to come downstairs now!" And as announced, someone did come down.

A man that must have been over eight foot tall, with proportionally very tall legs, a toned physique you could vaguely estimate even though the costume that was loose here and there, and a very masculine, but not hostile-looking human face. It was easy to see as much through the deep blue skin tone and the red hearts painted over his eyes.

He was dressed in a jester's outfit, coloured in royal blue with a few black square-shaped panels, and bright yellow collar around his neck that extended into drapes that hung off his shoulders, and with oversized boots even for his feet. Overall the outfit including the fool's cap came in a colour scheme that struck the human as strongly resembling that of another jester he recently met. He even had Jevil's black and blue cape hanging off his shoulders right below the collar.

"My smooth and feathered friends, I give you: Jandsome!"

The man bowed to the two of them. "Thank you, thank you!" When he came closer, he put on a wide grin and began raising his legs very far, stepping on one of the table, and circling the two and their euphoric guest host by stepping from table to table. "I am Jandsome, traveling jester. I move about from place to place and bring mischief and entertainment wherever I go. My, my, you two do look so very puzzled." He was speaking with a deliberately heightened pitch, so as to fit his role.

He began circling a little closer around their table, by walking on top of the chairs adjacent to their table rather than the tables themselves. "And so young, too. Are you lost? Are you looking for your mommies?"

Now, Berdly raised a finger and spoke for the first time since the two arrived here. "We're a little too old for that."

At this point, he jumped off the chairs and stood right next to them, while their guest host excused himself and left to stand further in the corner, waiting in case they needed anything. "But far from it. You are lost and look like you want to go home. How is that any different?" The two exchanged glances, but neither of them had much of an answer. "You see? But if you don't, you can prove me wrong. Here, take this."

Jandsome fumbled around in his costume and pulled out a little metal contraption. It was a little box, small enough to fit into one hand and had nothing on it except a red button. "This will take you right home. As soon as you press the button. Although, if you are not a pair of lost children looking for their mommies, you will find your way back home without pressing it. That way you will..."

"Hey!" Jandsome had just handed it over to the very hesitant looking bird, and the human was already ripping it out of Berdly's hand and holding Berdly with his other hand so that both of them would be teleported. He was not going to let an opportunity to get home like this slip just to for some stupid dare. He immediately pressed the button, only to hear a loud cracking noise and shake and let go from the painfully hot device. He stepped back and let it fall on the floor.

By the time he did, smoke was already coming out of it. The jester immediately burst out into an obnoxious, cackling laughter and Berdly couldn't help but chuckle as well. He winked at the jester. "Okay, that was pretty funny."

"He pressed it! Did you see the look on his face? He couldn't wait to press it for a second. So much for not being children. You're as much of a little mommasboy as I thought, aren'tcha?"

An evil grin crept up the bird's beak and he sat up on one of the tables to better level with the jester, who in turn stepped down onto the glittering floor. "Boy do you even know the start of it. Every day, his mom leads him to school by the hand and..." Kris for one, had heard the start of it and couldn't wait for it to get to the ending. So without a word, he left Berdly behind to keep gossiping with his new friend, while he looked around.

The dancers had since slowed down and broken the ring around the hall in favour of forming couples of male and female-dressed flowers and roses to perform slow ballroom dances instead.

"Hey! M'attends!" While he was about to leave through one of the corridors, the rose man in the suit ran after him. "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere really. I'm just looking around. I can do that, right?"

"Mais bien sur! Be our guest and explore at your hearts content. If you want anything, ve have a whole menu of vegan delicacies to serve guests. Zey are magnifique, I promise."

Vegan, so no milk, so if there even was any chocolate, it wouldn't be worth eating. "Yes. I think I can pass."

The area around the corner led through a door into an empty wardrobe. And from there, there was a door to some kind of makeup room. That one contained another light. He touched it and felt whatever it was that it really did, happen. The makeup room was a bit strange though, in that instead of chairs and sinks, it only had bath tubs filled with dirt. If he hadn't taken Berdly's new friend as a cue to go exploring, he wouldn't have found the light.

Perhaps there really was a usefulness to looking around and talking to everyone he came across. At least doing more talking than he was used to do. Maybe taking a page or two from that book wasn't such a bad idea.

Back in the main hall, he approached the first couple of dancers dancing in the corner and interrupted their dance. "Hello."

The rose in a suit lifted up the lily in a dress, so that she could stand on her own legs instead of hanging in his arms. "Well hello to you too, visitor, did we do well?"

Kris nodded. "Yes. Could I ask you a question?"

The plants gave each other a perplexed look. "Why of course."

"Is there a 'dark fountain' or a 'fountain of darkness' anywhere in the area that you could think of?"

The plants exchanged another glance and answered with newfound confidence. "At the outer peak of Canyon City. Right in the courtyard beyond the mayor's office. You can see it from all over the city, isn't that where you come from?"

"Nope." He went a bit closer to try and whisper to them. "I think we're what you call 'lightners'."

Both plant creatures gasped and covered their mouths. For a moment, he was considering whether this was a mistake and whether he should have drawn his sword right now. Depending on their reaction, he might have. But they quickly realized that he had been whispering for a reason and did so themselves. They were almost glowing from the sheer anticipation. "Does that mean Christmas is finally going to come soon?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure either. But the sooner we get home, the sooner it might."

This was enough for the two to look each other in the eyes, hold hands and jump in place out of joy. Christmas really seemed to be all these plants cared about. But more importantly, now he had a lead on where to go. Canyon City.

Around the other corner, he only found a dead end. And within the corner within the corner, he found a strange black object. It was a triangle, as if someone had taken a cube and cut it in half. Except that on one of the flat sides, it was carved in a shape he recognized from building block toys, to help it join up and attach to whatever you were building with it. It was too light to be made of concrete or some metal as well.

He put it in his inventory, a small brown bag, the inside of which was always as big as it had to be to hold everything he put in it irrespective of its size. Back in the main hall, he approached and greeted a different couple to pick up where he left off with the other one. "Hello. Would you happen to know how to best get to Canyon City?"

The rose, with his arm wound around the other rose, pointed straight upwards. "Sure. Just get to the airport. I think we have a plane there. It's how people move back and forth."

"Really? It's that easy?"

"Sure. Haven't had anyone come here recently until Jandsome over there arrived though. Ever since those two nervous brawlers appeared, things have gotten a bit awkward up there."

"Awkward?"

Both plants nodded. "Yes. They're always on edge, but they never leave. It's almost as if they were waiting for someone."

"Interesting."

With everything he could be bothered to do done, he went back to Berdly and his new friend. Jandsome was sitting on one of the tables rolled together and slapping the table while laughing with an exaggerated snicker. "...and then, he wouldn't balance on the rope like the rest unless Mrs. Alphys held his hand all the way through."

They were still recounting old school stories. "Berdly, I was ten years old at the time." He had no problem keeping calm in situations like this, Berdly would regularly bring up stories like this at school as well. Only a lot less frequently than on the spree he was on now. He did feel like raining on his parade to try to get him to stop though.

"It's still funny!"

"Berdly, I know where to go now. We need to get going. We still have one physics problem left, remember?" At last, the two calmed down a bit. Jandsome jumped off the chair and adjusted his fool's cap. It had slipped a bit, and when Kris spotted that it did, he spotted an odd coloration where it had slipped off that was promptly covered up by the jester pulling it over the uncovered spot. "Also, don't forget, we still haven't found Scott. This is all stuff that still isn't done when we're back."

To his relief, the bird sighed, gave in and followed him up the stairs. There had to be a way to this airport somewhere along this trail. "Wait!" Now with even more of a pitch, the jester skipped after them and calmed down when he saw them stop. "I will be joining you. You two seem much too interesting for me to miss whatever mayhem you may be causing with that sword you drew before. Besides. I have nothing new to show those fine people here."

He leaped down the few stairs they had already climbed and glided along the floor, a bit into the middle of the hall. He then spun in place, bowing in all directions. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for those entertaining hours. I enjoyed most surprising my two new friends, which I will be accompanying on their way further."

Even if only for a short while, the pairs of dancers stopped to wave the three of them goodbye, but by the time the three of them were further ascending the stairs, they already resumed their performance without needing an audience. Even when they were long past the upper platform and far away enough for the music to gradually turn inaudible for them, down in the distance, the band continued to play, the dancers continued to dance.

It felt like the plant creatures just wanted to do what they were there to do, whether it was to play music, or dance, it wasn't so much about them. Then again, they didn't do all this, until Kris and Berdly were in position to be surprised by them. It reminded him of something Ralsei had said on their travels through the card kingdom, about darkners wanting to fulfill their purpose for lightners. Could these roses and flowers have 'felt' that they were lightners?

On the upper platforms, there was another staircase on the other side of the hall. On the way, they asked a few more roses for the way to the airport and got directions. The next staircase led out of this smaller area within this abyss, and onto a very, very long stairway all the way up. And so the three of them ascended from the abyss. Away from the town built for Christmas, to which Christmas never came.

With little else to do but to keep making fun of Kris with Berdly, the oversized jester's giggling and nattering never stopped. While they went further and further up the seemingly endless path, Kris occasionally spotted one of those sticky platforms from before. From the distance, you could see how they they were curved, they sort of 'hung' there like rope bridges.

Eventually, the stairs led to an opening in a giant and proportionally very tall set of metal platforms, that ended in smoothly rounded arcs above and below it. The platforms they went onto looked like they were meant to drive on, but there were no vehicles. There were however, slopes that connected the platforms and allowed them to move up and down between them. Even the platforms above and below them were completely empty.

No people, no vehicles, and for an airport, it was terribly devoid of planes as well. When they wandered from pathway to pathway, the human started noticing the other two giggling behind him. When he stopped and turned around, they stopped as well. Both of them were very tense and trying very hard to keep their mouths shut. They were suppressing laughter. He said nothing, he just raised an eyebrow when looking at them.

Then they burst out in laughter so much, Berdly had to take a step back. With no shame, they pointed right at him and he didn't see what they were on about. His first instinct was to feel if there was something on his head, but there wasn't. He even turned around, nothing. He began feeling up all of his armor. Then, he finally found something.

There was something stuck on his back. He ripped it off and found it to be a little plastic disc that had a pink balloon, shaped like a giraffe attached to it. It was strangely light for what it was, he didn't feel it at all. "Very funny."

"It is! You're just not self-aware at all, are you?" Once he had thrown the balloon away, he touched up all of his back to find several more plastic discs with animal balloons. He looked back at Berdly, who was just keeping his finger pointed at him and kept laughing with this particularly angering smile. But he figured there was no point in doing anything but moving on.

There was something strangely unsettling about the weird, half-kneeling way Jandsome walked, just to level with the two of them a little. There generally was something unfitting about the tall, toned stature and the striking facial features being covered in what must have been makeup. He looked too human for it not to be.

Several stores further up, they finally spotted the plane Kris was looking for. It was a bit larger than your normal passenger's plane, but judging by the entrances and exits and its overall shape, it was one nonetheless. On their way to it, two figures leaned against metal bars and began to push themselves up and come their way when they spotted them.

One was a crocodile, with two 'belts' of golden metal spikes wrapped over his shoulders as if they were suspenders and like his partner, he was wearing a beige trilby and had a matching but too tight suit jacket forcibly wrapped and pulled over himself, so that the spikes had torn through the jacket and its tatters hung there a mere shadow of what they were supposed to be. At least his trousers weren't ripped the same way.

His partner was a shark, gills, overly wide mouth and everything. He was dressed in the same way as the crocodile, except that his hat hung off of the spiky, stuck-up strands of his purple mohawk hairstyle.

When they came closer, the crocodile clapped his hands. "There ye are!" He had a deep, grunty voice. It made sense, seeing as both him and the shark were almost as tall as Jandsome. "Light blue skin, dark blue hair, purple cape. Looks like we got our guy. At least one of 'em."

Both groups stopped with a few metres between them. Kris didn't know what feeling they gave him, but it wasn't good. "Were you expecting me?"

The crocodile nodded and gave him a subtle wink. "Can say that again. Ya wanna seal the fountain, right?"

"Yes?"

"Then you're in luck. Ya got friends in high places. We got ya a ride. Come along." He gave them a nod in the plane's direction, and both strangers simultaneously turned around and went right its way. No-one said a word the entire way there. And the first thing Kris noticed upon entering the plane from the set-up staircase, was that it was a lot more roomy inside than expected. The entire back area was open, but also empty.

Save for the few rows in the very front, all seats were removed, there was no machinery in the back, no separate storage area, nothing. It was for the most part hollow inside. "Here, take a seat. Big guy can sit in the back. We take it from here."

They were glad to be able to relax a bit, even though Kris couldn't help but be paranoid around those two. 'Brawlers' as one of the rose people in Christmas Town had called them. They took the seats next to a window on the left, the furthest in the back, so that Jandsome could lean over the seats from behind. They could hear the engines firing up. This really was an actual plane with engines. Though even with the engine running, it was going to take a while until they were ready to take off.

The plane already stood pretty close to the outer edge of the platform, so they were going to have to turn another round on the platform before they had enough room to gather enough momentum to lift off properly. As of yet, you couldn't see anything through the windows but the platforms and the dark. Kris opened up his inventory to look at the plastic piece he had found further down.

Nothing else here followed a pattern it fit into, not the plants, not the walls here, it must have come from somewhere else. Before he could figure what to do next though, he was being tipped on his shoulder. "Hey!" It was Berdly and judging by the look on his face, he was still miffed about Kris not further involving him with what was going on here. "This the point for more 'answers' now?"

What was he supposed to tell him? He had only been to the dark world once, he didn't know what rules applied or how it all worked. He tried just shrugging it off. "Oh come on. Give me something. What did you see other than that stuff you talked about before?"

"Well after we met Ralsei, we got to a big field with purple grass."

Immediately, the bird's eyes narrowed again. "Mmmhm...purple grass..."

"And a field with black and red tiles. And all along our way, we were attacked by jewel people, and women with hearts for faces who like flirting, and Susie made friends with a little blue guy." He tried thinking of more. "Then we went through a red blocky forest, and met a white 'thing' with three heads, a bit like the roserus from before."

"What's a ro - ah I get it."

"She was called clover. And she had three 'leaves' on all three faces." The bird's dismissive expression only grew stronger as he went on. "And in the end, we were captured, got to the top of card castle and beat Lancer's dad the King."

"Susie mentioned that name, right? What does Lancer look like?"

"The little blue guy."

"He wouldn't happen to have something like this somewhere would he?" He began drawing something in the air, with the vague shape of a a stem at the bottom and an upside-down heart attached to it."

"Yes."

"That's a Spade. Those are playing cards, Kris. The 'clover' is a club. Like in the abandoned classroom. It didn't happen. You and Susie just 'wiggled things' in the closet, both got hit on the head and wound up in there somehow." This 'wiggling things' thing was going to haunt him for years, wasn't it?

He could see where Berdly was coming from. He had recognized the pattern himself. But having fallen into the Dark World again made it hard for him to believe it didn't exist. He stared at Berdly for a while thinking about what to answer, but then just turned up to Jandsome, who was grinning down at them from above the leans of their seats. "What do you think? Is the Dark World real?"

The jester's hard-to-read grin grew all the wider. The hearts on his eyes were flawless, as if they weren't painted on, or painted very thoroughly. "Oh don't involve little old me. I find this much too amusing to interrupt."

Thanks for nothing, discount Jevil. But that left open a question to him. "Then how did Susie know about Ralsei?"

"Ralsei?"

"Yeah, I described him and she knew his name."

"Who is Ralsei now?"

Kris sighed. They were going to argue in circles if he tried recounting everything. "It doesn't matter. You wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Don't just try to shut down the conversation like that!" The angry bird grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

He had an idea. He opened his inventory. "You recognized the playing cards. What about this?" He pulled out the black cornerpiece he found in Christmas Town.

Upon taking it in his hands and feeling the inside opening in the fitting shape to attach it as part of some building block toy vehicle or building, his face began to grow tense. He had a strange look on his face that Kris failed to read. "N-no. Where'd you find that?"

"On the floor, but it was out of place, so it seemed important."

Berdly handed it back, but the moment Kris had it dangling above his bag, Berdly made sure to push it back where he had taken it from. "Don't just pick up other people's stuff."

"I was trying to say is, with Susie, we had all this stuff in the class room. What about you and now? Does anything we've seen strike you as familiar?"

The bird raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"I don't know, the roses? The music? Anything? What exactly is in your closet anyway?"

"Personal space, Kris. I lock it for a reason. You need to figure out respecting other people's personal space." This sounded more like a cop-out than anything to Kris. Now he really wanted to know what was in that closet. At least now that the constant threat of further inquiring about the closet hung over both of their heads, Kris at last had some rest from those incessant demands to hear absolutely everything he recalled from the day before.

In the time that Kris and Berdly spent talking, the plane had circled around the platform to get into a good position. At last, they were going to leave this pitch-black hole. Then again, it was the 'Dark' world, so it was probably going to be dark wherever they went. "And so it begins!" The jester jumped in place and almost stopped putting this weird squeak into his voice. "If the Dark World is this foreign to you, feast your eyes upon what comes next!"

Through the loudspeaker, a calm voice that was gladly neither of the two shady characters that led them there, announced that they were about to lift off and that passengers should fasten their seat belts.

And with the plane in a good position to do so, it finally accelerated and rolled off the platform at full speed. At last, they got to see the splintery cliffs pass by and see what was on the other side. The dark realm outside of the closet was - as expected, very dark. Through the tiny window, they gazed down the coastal area of what must have been a black sea. It wasn't just that it was dark, the water itself was pitch black and only visible through the contours and silhouettes of its waves.

In the distance, they could see very, very tall cliffs with a faint light shining onto their peak at the top. Bright enough to just spot it, but too faint to actually come from there. When it took a gradual turn to the right, Jandsome pointed out of the window and onto an unimaginably wide set of red-ish cliffs and ravines only just peeking out of the sea. Two rows of them at that. And there it was, at an upper part of the canyon, on the opposite side from where they were, the dark fountain, with its black blurb streaming right up into the sky. "This is it! Canyon City! The city of dreams! Where no day is like another and yet you will find the same places and the same people every day.

The tales of this place were carried far and wide, beyond this dark realm and to others."

"Others?" What the very tall man implied didn't quite fit with Kris' understanding of how the dark world worked. "Are there other dark realms than this one?"

The jester nodded. "Of course, of course. Many. I am not from this one either."

He wasn't sure whether he was misunderstanding him. It startled him enough to make him stutter. "And-and they're active? Now?"

"Of course, why not?" It made no sense to him. He wasn't sure when exactly the pertinent part was told to him, but he could have sworn the understanding he got from Ralsei's explanation made this impossible. More dark realms than two and even more, that wasn't possible, was it?

As if that hadn't been bad enough, he also had a bad feeling about how those two 'hosts' of theirs were moving to the back to open some compartment in a wall, way back. Not to mention that from what the three of them could see through the window, they weren't flying towards the city or making any efforts towards turning around to do so. In fact, Jandsome was very apt in commenting on this. "...and all the stories you hear from there are - aaand we just passed the last airfield and are flying away from it. What is going on?"

The plane was making a turn, but not to the left to circle the airfield, but slightly to the right. Further into the ocean and they were slightly gaining altitude, not losing it.

Then, after rummaging through some side compartment, the brawlers went back to the front and passed the three of them with big backpacks in their hands. Kris only shot Berdly a quick glance, when suddenly, they could feel the pull from the plane slightly changing course once again. "W-we don't have to..." A nervous voice from the cockpit shouted, and two monsters were dragged out of it by force and handed two more backpacks.

Which upon closer inspection, weren't backpacks. They were parachutes.

"Wanna get shot and thrown outta the plane? Get on with it!" The crocodile pushed the two timid dogs further to the left-hand door they opened, leaving the interior of the plane at the mercy of the pressing outside winds. And the moment the trembling pilots had wound their arms through the holdings and not even fastened them yet, the brawlers kicked them out.

At once, Kris undid his safety belt, got up and tried to make out the situation in the front. The two Brawlers had their pistols drawn and with their parachutes were already fastened to their backs and ready for use. "Sorry, fellas!", the shark shouted against the wind. "Ain't personal, Don Gatore sends his regards!" They paid little attention to him and jumped right after the two pilots before he could get to them. Without even regarding the hats they lost to the heavy winds on their way out.

"What are you - hey!" Before the just as agitated bird could rush past him and get anywhere near the brawlers, they were already outside and opening up their chutes by the time the two students made it to the open door. Seeing no point in further risking their lives by keeping it open, Kris ran towards the door hanging on the outside, tried grabbing hold of it and almost lost hold of the floor. He would have, if their tall new friend hadn't come to help and pulled it shut with a surprising routine.

"We're dead!", he heard Berdly shout. He was in panic, and when Kris and Jandsome followed him to the cockpit, they realized that he wasn't exaggerating. With the pilots gone and a belt strapped to hold the steering component and something below together, the passenger flight's nose was slowly pointing further and further down.

To make it worse, the plane was tilting to its right side as well. They were all latching onto door frames and grips to not lose balance and fall over. Then, Jandsome forced his way past Berdly, ripped Kris' sword out of his hand and struggled his way to the pilots' seats. "Let me through! It's a model I recognize! I might know how to fly this thing!"

As quickly as he could given the worsening turbulence, he bent over the seat, cut through the belt and began flipping a few switches and grabbing hold of the yoke. They immediately felt the pressure pull the two of them down when the plane began adjusting its course back to a more even one. "Yes! It's exactly the model I...I can fly it!" They were rocked to the side a bit, when the plane rapidly adjusted its tilt back to being evened out.

After that, he made a whole range of other adjustments on some specific parts of the enormous and confusingly complicated panel, which seemed to even out the flight even more from how it felt. They rigged it to crash but I think I got it under..." The newfound relief didn't last for more than a second though. "Uh oh..."

Now that Kris and Berdly could stand again, they followed the jester into the cockpit to watch what he was doing from up close. "What? What's going on?"

"Well the good news is, this one runs on batteries, so most of the systems didn't give in despite the bad news."

"And the bad news?"

"This!" The jester pointed at one display with its pointer as far to the left as it could be, and then put his hand back onto the yoke, which he never let go unless he had to. "They packed barely enough fuel to pass by the city without landing on it. We're too far out by now, we're going too fast and too low to turn it around and not crash. Tilting it as much as I'd have to without fuel is too dangerous! I can't turn us back to the city!"

So they were left to gliding in the same direction, further and further into the sea. At least as far as it was possible with a model as heavy as this. From the looks of it though, it seemed to suffice for a little while. As long as they maintained a stable forward course, they had a little while to come up with something. "Better get ready for the worst!" When the jester hit another button, compartments above all seats opened up and life jackets dropped down and hung right where the passengers would normally sit. Whenever he didn't have to follow up with something Berdly said, Kris took up the opportunity to grab those life vests and try preparing them to jump off the plane should it hit the water.

He wasn't given much time for that anyhow.

"Over there!" Berdly stretched out his finger to a tiny speck that Kris and Jandsome couldn't see until quite a while later. Those avian eyes must have been handy in seeing things in the distance. Then again what did he need his glasses for? The speck he was pointing at, wound up being land. An island. Not a continent, but it was better than landing in the water. It didn't have any mountains either, it was mostly flat. Good thing it wasn't raining, or else seeing it would have been impossible. "You think you can land on that?"

"I think so..." Jandsome had the plane fly a slight curve, possibly lose some velocity to gain more room for losing altitude until it was low enough for him to have a go at landing it. He reached for something specific the two of them wouldn't have found, and announced that the wheels were now out again. They did get a little too fast for comfort, but by slightly extending the curve, their jester-turned-pilot somehow managed to even it out so that slowly, but surely, they reached the ground.

The entire place rocked under the bumps of Jandsome's desperate attempt at having it roll along the surface enough to lose its momentum. Stumbling over a particularly uneven part rocked the entire plane enough for them to worry about it flipping onto its side and for Berdly to even get launched up and fall over, but from there, they could eventually navigate along a rocky, but mostly even landscape between a beach and green fields.

When finally, it slowly came to a halt, Kris was overcome with relief so much he couldn't resist walking back to the front row seats, sit down on one of them in spite of a big yellow vest hanging in front of his face, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. At least, this crisis had been averted, albeit no thanks to his help.

Not long after him, the two others came back, just as relieved from the sounds of it. "Phew, that was a close one...so...wait..." Berdly couldn't keep himself from asking, now that the immediate danger was averted. "Why do you know how to fly a plane? And a passenger flight no less?" Kris couldn't agree more. Jandsome had no problem operating this panel, with which he and Berdly wouldn't have known where to start. What kind of medieval jester doubled as at least a semi-profiessional pilot?

Jandsome, interrupted in his thoughts, was startled a bit by that question. "Ah, yes. Uhm. Night classes."

"There's night classes for piloting Boeings?"

"Yes. Of course."

"..okay. If you say so. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've seen today." When Kris opened his eyes, the other two were already stepping down the extended stairs of the door, out onto the field. The ground was very scratchy if you dragged your shoes along it, but it didn't quite feel like sand or gravel, more like fabric being torn. The insurmountable dark waves surrounded them as far as the eye could see.

Only far, far in the distance, so far away it was barely visible, he could see a faint light shine down a distant set of cliffs similar to the one he had seen on the way here. In fact, upon wandering for a bit through the gloomy landscape that surrounded them, he realized that the 'beach' to their right didn't have any sand on it at all.

Even when removing a glove and grasping a bit of it with his hand, it felt more like rope, or smooth strands of fur woven together, and merely having a more bright texture to it than the 'grass' the other two were on. Not to mention it was so dark, you could barely see the difference unless you went really close.

For the most part, you could only tell the 'texture' of any place from the coloring of their silhouettes against the light that came - yet again - from nowhere as far as he could discern. "Still. Could you explain to me why that choice? What made you go from making jokes to 'I might try my luck piloting passenger flights'? Seems like a pretty big change."

"It was in case I needed to switch careers?" Jandsome didn't sound quite so convinced of his own answer either.

It wasn't as silent as in the pitch black cliffs they were in before, but there wasn't much to hear either. Only the rushing of the waves washing onto the shore and the steps of the other two. They were alone here. Alone in the middle of nowhere. To make it worse, there were a few hills here and there, but no mountains, no caves, no trees, if they found no way out of here, they were pretty much lost.

Berdly's grin widened. "What? There not enough medieval courts to hang around at?"

At last, some annoyed grumbling revealed that the jester was beginning to lose patience with the bird as well. "Yes. I assume you could say so."

With little direction, mostly in wait to see if they found something or came up with a way forward, the three, wandered along a landscape that only just peeked out of the endless expanses of a pitch-black ocean. Kris followed the other two, but every few metres, he checked the ground again. These interruptions took up so much time, the other two had to slow down for him to keep up. Eventually, the bird turned around to tip on his shoulder. "Hey! What are you doing anyway?"

He raised his head, but as he often did, didn't look Berdly in the eyes. "It's the carpet. There was a carpet in the middle of your room, right?"

Berdly didn't think of it much, except that Kris was acting strange - again. He raised one eyebrow at the human's peculiar antics. "Yeah, why?"

"Then the pattern is holding up. It's like in the abandoned classroom." He looked up at the void that surrounded the air above the sea. You could barely see through it at all, and you couldn't see the places they were at previously. "Hey." He ignored the bird and went over to slightly pull on the absent-minded jester's silky costume. "Could you tell me, where roughly everything was? The cliffs, the city?"

Although he was standing straight before, Jandsome quickly crouched down to level with the younger human and slipped back into his more hunched-together pose. "Why of course. The cliffs were that way." With the other arm, he pointed slightly to the right of that. "And that would be where the city is."

"Hm..." Kris stood next to him, pointed one arm between the two directions Jandsome was pointing in and pointing the other at first in the exact opposite one, then a little further to the right of it. Straight towards the distant cliffs, the only ones visible from here, as well as the only light source visible from here, however faint it was. "...a little less than a hundred and eighty degrees."

"What in blazes are you on about?" Considering they had no idea where they were or where to go, Berdly was sure easy to upset if you didn't pay attention to his implicit plan of 'just moving forward'. "I'm talking to you, look at me!" He grabbed Kris by the shoulder and made him turn his way. "And get the hair out of the way, for crying out loud."

Kris frowned, but he did as he was told. This time. Then he pointed at Berdly. "We're in your room."

"What?"

He ripped himself free of the feathered hand that held him in place and headed a few steps towards where the coast used to lie until they had marched quite a bit further inland and pointed at the cliffs in the distance. "It's like in the abandoned classroom. Everything is here. That over there." He pointed at the faint light in the distance and then looked back at the two. "It's the table lamp. That whole thing over there..."

He drew an arch in the air with his hand, covering from his point of view, the entire set of cliffs they could barely see if it weren't for the light. "... that's the table. And all this..." He hopped up and down where he stood. "...you know why it feels like strings and cloth? because it is. It's the carpet."

And then he went back to Jandsome to point in the directions the jester had frozen in place pointing at. "And then the cliffs would be the closet, that's why they're so much darker than the ocean. It's around the corner from the table lamp, the light doesn't get there."

"And the city?"

"You had these big red boxes, right? And what colour would you say a canyon has, like the one we passed?"

He did startle the disbelieving bird for a little at least. "...red..." But mere moments after that, he shook his head at what Kris was implying. "Even then, that's all nonsense!"

"You mean nonsense the same way as being trapped in a 'dark world', with suits of armour, swords, guns, different colours, us having these bright colours when there's no light, giant rose attack dogs, dancing flower people, court jesters who can fly airplanes..."

"Yes, yes, yes I get the point, geez. Where are you going with this anyway?"

"Any darkners we meet are going to be objects from your room. And the city is going to be those boxes. What is in those boxes?" They proceeded to walk further towards where the city presumably was. Berdly stayed silent for quite some time while doing so. "The fountain is in there, we're going to see it in some way anyway."

The bird mumbled some probably not very nice things, but he did give in eventually. "Old toys. They're toy boxes from when I was younger." The human's eyes widened. Toy boxes? Those things were trunks. How many toys did he have? What kinds of toys did he have? Actually, now Berdly's reaction to seeing the plastic corner piece Kris now fumbled out of his bag again made more sense. And upon seeing it, the annoyed bird nodded.

"Yes, building blocks. I used to play a lot with building blocks. You happy now?" Well, at least that was something for when Berdly would go back to asking him about all things Dark World. Speaking of which. "Can you explain the part with the fountain?"

"When me and Susie were in the Dark World, we escaped by sealing the dark fountain. Ralsei explained it with this prophecy about a human, a monster and a prince from the dark. If the same prophecy works here like last time, all we need is a prince."

"...a prince?"

"Like Lancer or Ralsei."

Berdly sighed. "Again with those two. What if we don't meet them?"

"We'll just have to find a different prince. Or maybe it doesn't even work that way. Ralsei wasn't there when me and Susie sealed it. Maybe we don't need a prince and all it takes is a monster and a human.."

"I would have liked those answers to be a bit more definitive."

"Well I don't have definitive answers to everything, that's why I don't like it if you keep asking questions." He didn't notice until afterwards that he was raising his voice.

"All right, I get it, no need to get worked up over this." But it was too late, he already was. At least the extended silence that followed this exchange helped a little to amend that.


	4. Of Broken Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The city of dreams, upon examining it up close, isn't quite what it is made out to be. Not anymore.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 04

Of Broken Dreams

* * *

The black waves had a downright hypnotic effect on Kris. Maybe he shouldn't have stared at them during their silent march across the beach on the other side of the island. Then again, it wasn't like there was much else to look at, everything but the island and the light above the cliffs in the distance was obscured by the dark. When it had begun, the quiet that settled between them was a blessing.

It freed Kris from the incessant onslaught of snarky comments and questions he couldn't answer to satisfaction, but as time went on, the more ground they covered with no visible way of getting off this island emerging, the more it began to wear down on all three of them. The island was too big to overlook as a whole from any given point, but it wasn't big enough to give them much more area too explore either.

The jester had tried to lighten the mood by making strange hand gestures in front of Kris' face, which left behind a fake mustache under his nose. But this joy at Kris' expense didn't last for long either. Slowly, but surely, the creeping realization that they were out of options took hold in all three of them. For quite some time, they were wandering along what Jandsome claimed was the part of the coast directly adjacent to the city.

And albeit only barely, they could even see that this was true with their own eyes. There just was no way over, or any way off this island for that matter.

Eventually, Berdly stopped moving, as did everyone else because of it. "Ugh, it doesn't look like there's any way over." He turned to Kris. "Now what?" He put his hands together behind his back, came closer and swung his head left and right with every sentence.

"Any more grand insights about the dark world? Any special tricks you got? Any game-changing rules I should know of? Anything to suggest that we aren't - you know - STRANDED WITH NO WAY OUT? What in hell's name are we going to do?" He covered his face and sat down on one of the scratchy 'rocks'.

Kris brought along a few strands of the fabric the island was made of and tried rolling them together. "If we just used the whole island to weave a really long rope...", but he was interrupted before he could go on.

Berdly pointed out all the obvious pitfalls this idea had. "Say we made this rope, how do we get it there, huh? Do we swim? Might as well not make a rope and just swim right over why don't we? Not like we're going to freeze to death even with life vests. What's next, huh? Maybe we can go all MacGyver and re-purpose the plane's jet and hull to craft a motorboat with all those welders, hammers and boxcutters WE DON'T HAVE. Then you do this thing where you pull a shield out of thin air and we just surf right over." He got up and wandered towards the open sea with his arms wide open. "I don't know why I assumed you had any idea what we were doing, you bumbling idiot! You're as useless with this..."

He slowly spun a circle around himself. "...whatever this is - you're as useless with this as you are with school work or anything else for that matter! If I were here with Noelle instead of you, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place! Her not being here to help is one thing, but being stuck with you of all people that's the worst part!" Kris said nothing. He just listened. He listened while projecting his mind into a better place.

He pictured himself with Berdly in a golden hall, surrounded by pillars. Built into the walls were stained glasses depicting him torturing the bird with all manner of archaic instruments, and in the middle, he held him down. Stabbing at Berdly's throat again and again and again until he just collapsed into dust as Monsters did when they died. It was never serious, but imagining it was, always helped him calm down. "I mean geez! What are we going to do?"

Kris for one, didn't touch any lights upon coming here. He could go back if they genuinely didn't find a way. But he didn't know anything about this 'Don Gatore' person the two brawlers mentioned, and if they wanted the three of them dead, it was probably the best if the Don thought they were.

"What am I going to do?"

"At ease, my friend, calm down." The jester approached him with open hands, but it was in vain.

At this point, the main reason Kris didn't just move things back was more that he enjoyed watching Berdly despair the way he was right now. "Oh please, anything!" Berdly dropped on his knees, put his hands together and looked up at the black night sky. "Please, Angel, send me a sign! Anything to help me get away from this moron behind me! Anything to set me free, I beg you!"

The moment he said this, an ear-shattering thunder made the three of them flinch and a lightning bolt struck the water in front of Berdly. Where it struck, a single white explosion a little off the coast left behind rays of golden light that extended all along the water and to their island. Choirs of unseen angels sung to the appearance of a figure at the heart of the light. "Fear not, distressed lightners!"

It floated closer to the now more attentive group, all of which got up and tried to get a better look at him. The figure was an eagle, dressed in several layers of extravagant robes. The parts where they ended were lined in furs, the entirety was woven over with golden threads. Gemstones of all kinds hung off on various points of his clothing and were attached to the rings and necklaces he wore in excess.

And with a crown on top, and mounted onto it, a golden plaque displaying a popularized symbol commonly accepted to visualize the core of an atom and the electrons circling around it. "All your worries are now without warrant. All your prayers have now been answered. For it is I: The Hawk King."

Some more curious, some more in awe, they came closer to the fast approaching figure. "Who are you?", the bird finally asked after he was mere metres away from him.

The hawk spoke with a echo to his voice, as if he was speaking inside a large temple or church with tall and wide walls. "I am a being from the brink of creation itself, and come to you to bestow upon you my infinite wisdom." The Hawk King held a large tome in his right hand, which he opened up to search for a specific page. "What truths, my friends, do you seek to begin your journey of wisdom with?"

Berdly raised an eyebrow. "Could you tell us how to get off this island and to the city?"

The Hawk King grinned and shook his head. "Please, such trivialities no longer matter, now that I am here. There are matters of greater importance, like the secret behind the alignment of the stars, the question between the heat death or the cycle of expansion and contraction of the universe, the nature of black holes, the prospects of space curvature..."

"Yes, but is there a way to get to the city or not?"

The King was startled, lowered himself but also floated a little further away. "Well, yes, but that no longer matters. You now have access to infinite knowledge."

"Is there a way to the city?" Berdly kept pressing this Hawk King on the thing that the three of them cared about.

And as expected, the spirit was getting more and more agitated. "It doesn't matter! You can become omniscient! The greatest mysteries of the universe will soon unravel before your very eyes."

"But we want to get to the city."

The eagle raised his arm and above him appeared images of cities thriving with floating vehicles, and then a time lapse of their decay. "Entire civilizations have seen their dusk and dawn, searching for the answers I can provide!"

The bird waved all these offers for knowledge they didn't need away in one clear swipe. "Look, we just. Want. To get. To. The City."

The resigned king took a deep breath and sighed. "Fine. Come along. I will show you the way." He began floating right past them, to a place further inward between the hills that they hadn't come across. On their way to where they met the hawk, the three of them had taken a path along the beach around some of the 'grass' in hopes of finding a way over.

Judging by where they were going, exactly that was a complete mistake, as embedded between the hills, they arrived on an uneven, solid surface with a big yellow dome in the middle. Once they arrived, the Hawk King led them to stand on the end of the white platform that was opposite from where the city lay. "Beneath your feet lies a wondrous contraption, brought to us not long ago, by the lightners.

Once I direct it to begin, its golden light will form a straight path and guide you to the location you seek." The moment he finished that very sentence, the ground beneath them shook and soon, the solid platform they were on began to rise up until it was above all the hills. The yellow dome in the middle began to light up like a giant lamp.

Then, in an upwards line that turned flat a little further, as wide as the dome, a straight yellow ray of light began extending itself in the direction opposite to them. "Do not fear, it will act as a bridge and see you safely across the water."

The jester was the first to raise his boot and carefully place it on the light, only to notice that indeed, he wound up standing on a curved slope that followed the path of the light that extended itself further and further onto the sea. Once they saw him 'walk' into the air with his feet never falling beneath the light, the other two started stepping on it as well. Keeping one foot on the light, the jester spun around to face the hawk, gave him a half-serious salute and bowed. "You have our thanks, good sir."

Perhaps this Hawk King was going to be useful. "So, your majesty, could you tell us where we find a prince or get to the city hall?" The hawk didn't so much as dignify him with an answer. "What happened to 'I'm an omniscient being'?"

"You rejected the fundamentals of cosmic knowledge and continue to do so, you do not deserve to delve into the same pool for trivialities. You got your wish. I will now move on in search of less ignorant disciples." Clearly upset about their previous interactions, he began to float away, along side the ray of light, straight to the same destination they were heading for.

Silently, they followed him. Along the light that kept stretching out all the way to the shoreline on the other side of the sea. The silence wore them down about as much as it did, when it was their creeping desperation to find a way off this island, only that now, it did for other reasons.

Jandsome made use of the fact that Kris was now in a bit more of a rush to move forward and snuck over to Berdly to tug at the shoulders of his jacket. "Say...", he began to whisper. "...all the jokes are fun, but you seemed a little too serious just before."

The bird snarled at him. "I was."

Jandsome tilted his head, still bent slightly over the bird, thanks to his height. "Oh please, we were just teasing him weren't we?"

They both slowed down to gain a little distance from Kris. "You haven't spent years of school with this guy. You want to know some thing about him? You think I'm just teasing him? You think that mommasboy stuff is just a joke? You know, he's gotten a lot more talkative ever since we came here, but he's really different actually. He's that weirdo everyone knows who won't talk to you unless he has to. The one that won't look you in the eye unless you tell him to.

Sometimes if you talk to him, he'll only answer in gestures if at all. And he's bad at school. So bad, a close friend of mine spends so much time putting together problems and quizzes of her own - as if she was a teacher - just so she could help him along, and sometimes, he doesn't even let her get a chance to use it. And at some point, our class moves past it with our material. So it just winds up material she made to help him and never got to use.

Wasted efforts that no-one was forcing her to make. It just winds up catching dust in a shelf in my room. He's a mommasboy because he's got no-one else to turn to. He's only here because our teacher had this weird sudden idea to scrap our old assignment and force me to be his partner. And he deserves everything he gets. I can't wait to make it back home so we can get that last problem over with.

I might as well kick him out right afterwards. I don't even care if it's four in the morning or something when we get back. No way I'm letting this guy have the mattress. Or the bed for that matter."

"Surely, you are exaggerating. Do you mean to say you want to throw him out into the cold of the night?"

"Why not? Would suit him right."

The jester wagged his index finger. "This sounds more severe than mere discontent over some school work. It is not healthy to harbour such grudges. What good is a prank or a joke, if your mind is poisoned and can't enjoy it? Besides." He began walking in his otherwise more usual half-kneeling fashion, moved closer and warded the already distant human off with one hand to whisper a little more quietly.

"It feels to me like there is more to this grudge of yours than only the impressions a shy person would leave. This friend of yours. You said it is a 'her'. I can't help but notice the two of you to be in that age where..." He stopped for a moment, because Berdly adjusted his hat so he could shoot the jester a deadly glare, and the red hearts drawn over them only annoyed him all the more when he did so.

It wasn't quite as intimidating as the generally non-threatening bird would have liked it to be though. "I'm just saying. Makes me curious. This friend of yours, tell me about her."

Berdly simply rolled his eyes off to the side, sighed and fixated Jandsome again. "Some other time, maybe, okay?" That seemed to be enough of an answer. The jester grinned even more than he did before, backed off, put his hands up and shrugged. With their private conversation settled for the time being, they sped up to join up with Kris again. He only understood bits and pieces of what Berdly said when Jandsome was the only one whispering.

The closest thing to a building they spotted outside of the gorge ahead, was an airfield, except it was fenced off and so small, it barely had enough space to land the one plane that was standing there. Upon getting closer, it became obvious that this plane was significantly larger than theirs. If Jandsome entered this one, he wouldn't have had to hunch forwards like he had to in the brawlers' one.

There were a few little roads leading down onto ropes and what seemed to be an elevator big enough for move vehicles. It wasn't until they left behind the loud rushing of waves crashing against the coastline, that the jester ran ahead, just before they began to see red rock of the terrifyingly big gorge they were about to enter, stopped and bowed before them. They had to admit to themselves, the loose clothes and the cape did give his demeanour a bit of a majestic air.

"Gentlemen, I give you Canyon City!" What they saw upon coming closer, they had only ever seen on photos shot to attract tourists. This canyon was every bit as wide and quite a bit deeper than it looked on scenic photos. Layers of buildings and pavements were built on top of each other, and you could only see that they were through what little wasn't covered in the top layer.

In the middle, there was hole with a little more than a third of the canyon's radius, of course roughly matching the lengthy shape of the entire landscape. And off in the distance, there was a whole other canyon that they couldn't even look into from here. "Worry not about the aggrieved eagle. There are places here, where one can learn anything they care to know, without conditions on the perceived importance of what they learn."

They followed the ramp down into the upper level of the city. The pavement felt smooth, as did the walls when slid along. But in terms of the colouring and the design, the buildings here were made to give the impression that this wasn't the wealthiest part of town. The walls of what seemed to be apartment buildings inspired by the more coloured districts of a world-famous coastal city, were painted red with white lines drawn over where all the 'bricks' connected.

And while the walkway wasn't as rough as a real one in the light world was, it was dirty. There were traces of some gray substance spread across it, and in the corners between the road and the walkway, they kept spotting empty needles. Kris couldn't help but peek into the narrow alleyways between buildings each time they came by one, and eventually, he wound up regretting that.

A shock took hold of his spine when he stumbled from being grabbed by his lower leg. "Some change!" A sad sight lay on the ground, right next to the three shocked travelers. At first sight, it looked like a monster. It was a green bird, dressed in nothing but a torn shirt and short trousers. Every spot not covered by what little the clothes did cover, was dirty, and some of the plastic slides that made up his 'feathers' were falling off. He kept holding Kris' leg with his strange hand.

It wasn't like a monster's or human's hand. It didn't have five fingers like any normal person in the light world did. It had two very flat, very wide mutually opposite digits. Of course, the hand made him realize it. If this was a city made of building blocks, people like this poor man were the corresponding figures. "You guys got some dust? Or some change...anything!"

He continued to plea and wouldn't let go of Kris' leg. He tried tugging it away several times, and eventually with one big pull, got rid of the beggar.

What was that just now? The queasy feeling he was already getting from the unkept roads and suspicious lack of cars passing by. They had barely rushed around a corner to get away from the beggar, when someone else pushed himself off the wall of the building to stand in their way. A visibly bigger figure than the few 'monsters' they saw walking along in the distance here and there. It was a shark in a trenchcoat who tipped his trilby to greet them.

With a hand that did have ordinary fingers. "Hey guys. You look like you got some cash." He opened up his coat and revealed bags of a grey, powdery substance. "You guys want some dust? It's the best stuff! Take you on a grand journey"

Before Kris and Berdly had any time to figure out what was going on here, the jester shoved his way past them and gestured the stranger to back off. "I assure you, my friends and I already have had our fair share of a grand journey. Pardon us if we pass on your offer this time. Have a good evening!" He had to physically push the two hesitant and confused teenagers.

They both lived isolated in an ethnically homogenous suburb inhabited entirely by Monsters. Sure, they heard about drugs through the internet, but they never had problems like someone in their idyllic town selling them, so they weren't sure how to deal with this. "Move along."

It took them a little longer than the mentally prepared jester to figure out what was happening here, but it didn't take too long for Berdly to spell out the obvious question that hung over them ever since they passed that dealer. "Stuff like this guy before...is that normal here?"

"In much smaller amounts, yes. Short while ago, it got much, much worse. By now, this is normal. Believe me, it's best for you if you just avoid it." The darkness and the lack of streetlights that weren't broken didn't help with the already uncomfortable air between them. They were lucky enough for their surroundings turning a little less grisly as they moved on.

More and more often, a street light actually worked for a change, and occasionally, a vehicle passed by along the street, although they weren't the kinds of vehicles Kris first expected. When the unusual shape started to become noticeable, he began to pay attention. They were those kinds of vintage cars you only saw in car-themed museums or in movies made to cater to fascinations with western life many decades ago.

They came with a smooth, curved outer body in the front and back, but leading abruptly into a straight-upward window. There was no way they could fit Jansome into one of those cars if they wanted to. Once they got past a district with a few grocery stores, presumably for the low-quality living area they came through at first, they finally took a turn towards the inner area.

The path to the downward ramps led straight through a giant, dark-grey garage, with a lot of these cars using them. They passed by a lot more very unhealthy-looking monster-looking citizens, reclined within various niches and corners, some begging them for some change, but when Kris offered to give one of them some, Jandsome insisted the sorry-looking dog would only spend it on more dust.

They skipped more than one floor, and when they came out on the other side, they arrived in a much better-looking part of the city. It was a lot brighter here, thanks to something shining down on them that looked a lot like the moon. Except that it couldn't be the moon, because they weren't even on the top floor for one thing. It must have been some kind of lamp.

Immediately to both sides of the exit of the giant parking tower that appeared to extend from the bottom of the canyon, to the top, were wide-open areas. On their right, a white square and garden with a - granted - defunct fountain, but at at least it seemed a lot less grim than the state some other parts of the city were in. It was part of what led up to a large ivory building, the roof of which seamlessly led right into the ceiling that made up the ground of the floor above them.

To their left was a regular market square with comparably vague buildings lining its side and back. It wasn't that they weren't defined, they just seemed a bit too uniform and with no indicator for what the closed doors would have led to, if someone opened them. There even were a few stands, but they were all abandoned, thrown over, and broken.

This area was generally a little more densely populated from the looks of it. The buildings they saw in the distance in all directions had their lights on, and a lot more people were walking about on both squares and along the wide and much more busy road in the middle of the parking tower's exit. Things got a lot less roomy once they passed the wider area and made their way into one of the more regular looking streets, with closed shops in every direction they looked in.

And the shops weren't the only thing that appeared a little less present than in the more straightforward area. There were people around the squares. There weren't any here. And the buildings weren't decaying, but the streets were comparably short and both Kris and Berdly felt more and more paranoid with each turn they took. Increasingly often, Kris thought he spotted someone watching them from around the corner and retreating the moment they were being looked at.

And judging by how often he turned around to check on the two of them, Jandsome was more worried than he usually was as well.

It was only a question of time, until they all froze upon hearing the unmistakable sound of gunfire. One shot, and it wasn't here. They couldn't allow themselves to be ambushed by whoever was pulling the trigger though, so without even talking about it, they all rushed not away from the source of the shot, but towards it. When they got closer, they preferred to err on the safe side and stay very close to the walls and closed-off shop windows.

They all nigh-froze from being so tense out of worry of getting spotted. They froze all the more, but now with a stinging cold in their backs, when they heard the clicking sound of someone releasing his firearm behind their backs. "Hands where I can see'em." They did as they were told, for the time being. There had been a light to touch on the square, so Kris was in less of a panic than the situation would have warranted.

Slowly and with no sudden moves, the three turned around to see a frilled drake in an awkwardly fitted, red suit jacket, a white shirt and an equally blood-red tie, and a top hat to match it. Clothes that matched with what regular people wore here, but you could see through the jacket that he had an ammunition belt for something that used very long bullets swung over each shoulder. "Wait..." The lizard turned his head to the side and gave Kris a good look.

Then he pulled a little scrap of paper out of his jacket pocket and compared it to him. And upon doing it, a smile crept up his dry-looking lips. "Looks like today's my lucky day."

"If I may, suggest..." Jandsome, who had taken a few steps to the side with his hands still over his head, began to draw his attention. "...surely, we can come to some form of agreement, after all if you..." Mid-sentence, he did make a sudden move, but not enough of a major one to make the lizard pull the trigger. He closed and opened his hands without moving them, and confetti shot out of his costume and flew about one and a half metres into the air.

And while keeping the gun pointed at Kris, the reptile followed the confetti with his eyes to assure himself that it wasn't something else.

Visibly upset, he went on to stare at the jester. "Wat'cha playin'? You pull some thingamajig like that one more time, and I blow the kid away."

The jester, now grinning, took his hands down and shrugged. "Please, if you insist, be my guest." He wasn't joking. For a moment, a pressing feeling took hold of Kris, when the lizard pointed his weapon arm at him and moved his index finger backwards to pull the trigger. Only to then, to the surprise of everyone but the jester realize, that his pistol was actually a banana. With a victorious grin, the jester wagged the real revolver around in his hand.

"The good 'ole banana swap. A timeless classic." Now insufficiently armed to fight them, the brawler backed off, spread out his frills and hissed at them before he ran way. Relieved over the short-hand diffusion of this situation, both Kris and Berdly commended the jester. "I aim to please. Did you not expect me to have something up my sleeve? Now then, let us not waste much more time. We're already well on our way."

Now with a newfound hastiness, they rushed from street to street, and all the more wary of whether someone could be lurking around the next corner the same way as before. Once they were quite a bit further out, their apparent guide pointed at one of the many cars. This time, it was one that had a police light on its roof. "As you can see, we are getting closer."

And they could see why he pointed at a police car, since more and more of them appeared parked on the sides of the road. And when they shot the cars a glance, they could even spot monsters in similar attire to Berdly, usually eating something while locked away comfortably in their vehicles.

As the jester became increasingly jumpy with anticipation while they strolled down a comparably broad road with five police cars parked towards the crossing, they could already guess where they were going. Except the repeated clicking of readied firearms shot down those expectations right away. Just around the corner, putting them on the spot in the middle of a wide-open crossing, stood three more brawlers.

Kris and Berdly were a little faster at distinguishing them by now, seeing as there was a pattern here. One of them was the frilled dragon in red from before, but he was accompanied by two identically dressed men with lengthy snake heads. "End of the line!" one of the snakes hissed. And in the moments of motionless silence that followed, two of them tried to come up with a strategy to get through them. "You wanna keep going, you're gonna have to go through us."

Berdly tilted his head to the side. "You really want to attack us right here? With all the cops around?" He looked back to reassure himself that they were there, but they hadn't moved and most of them had monsters sitting in them, intently watching what was happening.

The reptiles were staggering in place a bit and couldn't suppress wide, tense smirks. "Wanna...elaborate on that?"

"Well obviously if you actually assault us, they're going to arrest you."

The brawlers had to support each other to not fall over after bursting out in shrill laughter as hard as they did upon hearing this. "Get a load of this guy! The cops doing anything!" They took a minute or two to calm down from the hysterical laughter. One of the snakes had collapsed and was trying to push himself back up with one hand while smashing his fist onto the ground over how funny he found this.

When the drake in red finally got a hold of himself, he sighed and wiped a tear off his eye. "Kid, you musta watched way too many crime shows. Stuff works a little different in the real world. Sorry to disappoint. Cops ain't gonna move a muscle. Boss made sure of that." It wasn't as though he was wrong. The three in front of them had long drawn their firearms and the policemen didn't look like they were about to make any efforts to leave their vehicles.

Finally slipping into the role his clothing implied, the bird grinned and drew both his guns. "Guess we're fighting this one out then."

"No." Berdly was rather surprised when Kris snapped at his opponents and at him. "No we aren't." He began walking straight their way, without drawing his weapon or showing any intention to fight them. He couldn't be dealing with this right now. He wasn't going to catch bullets for Berdly and carry his unbearable classmate's weight. He didn't have the nerve for it. The bouquet in the closet was one thing, but these were three people, armed and intending to kill them.

He was loaded from his time with Susie. All the darkners that left them some money for sparing them, and all the money he had frisked off of them after Ralsei put them to sleep. He had about three thousand of that currency.

"Whaddya mean, you don't?" The reptiles were as taken aback as his two 'allies'.

He opened his bag, and fetched for the little paper bills. "You guys do this for money, right?" They paused, and after a few questioning looks were exchanged, they nodded. Kris pulled together a bundle of those bills. "I'll give you three hundred dark dollars if you go away. You can either take it and leave, or we're going to fight this out and I take whatever you have on you instead."

They began staring at each other. For quite some time. And drops of sweat ran down their uneven skin. But in the end, while orders were orders, money was money, too. So they came around to pulling the bundle out of the human's hand and smiled. "You get away this time. But if we know, Boss' gonna know. There will be other guys comin' for ya." Apparently, it worked. They left without a fight. They could continue those last few roads along the outer edge of this level.

Over here, the 'moon' had switched locations, or rather, it was just a different moon-shaped lamp installed above this part of the canyon, because the one above the squares was too far away for the surrounding buildings not to cast a shadow on this area. They had to travel quite a bit along the curve until at last, the jester slowed down a bit. And when they were finally there, he stopped and spread his arms out.

"There we are. If you are in a foreign township and know now where to find what you seek, you ask the town guards. Or in our case, the police." They were standing in front of a wide, blocky building. It really was just a white 'block' built from smaller bricks, painted all white with two green stripes and one blue one. Some police cars were parked at its side, only that this time, they didn't have this vintage design all the other ones, had, but were modern models.

On one of two little flowerbeds next to the front door, one of the lights Kris could use to secure their progression was shining, unbeknownst anyone else who passed it. "And this..." The jester paused, intently watching as Kris walked up to the precinct to see how far he would go and didn't go on until Kris stopped to see whether he was following. "...is not our destination, since our friend and helper didn't prove as much of one as one would expect. Instead, this is our true destination."

He marched off, now with a significant head start, to the building immediately next to the precinct. A tower with a cube at its base, and right above the walled-off cube, glass walls covering the rest of the tower and the penthouse at its top. Several white pillars all around the building reaching from the ground to the penthouse, helped keep it stable in case it was particularly loaded up there.

The tower was tall enough to blend right into the ceiling of the level they were on and in the middle, it had a deep blue neon light in the shape of a lowercase 'i' attached.

With all three back together, they approached a set of tall, automated glass doors that slid wide open the moment they stepped onto the little walkway to the entrance. And inside, their steps echoed along the walls of the otherwise empty building. Pipes wound their way along the grey ceiling above. Green and purple lava lamps lined the walls to either side, and yet they weren't the source of light, completely normal light bulbs hanging off the ceiling between the pipes took care of that.

They followed the wide hallway further inside, until they reached a large hall, all upper walls of which were covered by screens that took up their entire surface, depicting maps and live footage from different streets outside. This included the one in front of them, with a double elevator right below it.

They stopped for a moment to examine their surroundings, but when they were just about to head towards the elevator, they were startled by a crackling noise that came from right above their heads. "Hello, my friends. Welcome to the information centre. What information can I assist you with?" It came from a floating man, a green parrot in what looked like a red hotel page's uniform, but with a matching red hat on his head, just like how most people in this city had.

"Allow me to introduce myself, I am the Infopage, but acquaintances refer to me as Manuel." It didn't appear like gravity affected him in any way. Or whether he needed to do anything to move. He seemed to just fly around at his leisure, with no strings or wings necessary to make it possible. Berdly, upon looking closely, could see some faint flickering in his appearance, from which he drew his own conclusions on how this otherwise normal-looking monster could fly around like that.

He spun an infinity symbol in the air while he continued to go on. "I have all the information you might need, at your disposal. Pamphlets, brochures, maps, trivia, restaurant recommendations, anything you need." Little paper pamphlets began raining down on them from above, but only Jandsome bothered to catch one to not be inconsiderate.

Instead of giving them a try, the bird smirked, stepped aside so he could face Manuel directly without straining his neck. "So do you also just answer questions or are tourist guides everything you got?"

"Of course." The infopage snipped his fingers, and the screens that covered the walls all switched simultaneously towards camera footage of different places outside. In some places, there were people walking the streets, so they weren't just static images.

"There are cameras in every corner on every level of our two canyons. And I am the only person with full access to the feed of every single one of them. If anything happens anywhere within the confines of our city, I am going to know about it."

This was the opportunity Kris was waiting for, so he followed Berdly up on questioning the page. "We're looking for a prince from the dark. Do you know where we can find one?"

Manuel put his hands together and leaned on them with his chin while looking down at the three of them. "Of course. I can immediately think of two. One is a connoisseur of many places, not a prince in the traditional sense, more like a 'prince charming' but he is renowned and well-liked with everyone here, many would consider him a 'prince' when asked. He came here today, but in more of a rush than otherwise. Then, there would be another one I haven't seen until today.

A short and timid one. Easy to intimidate with body language alone. Wears a green robe and a scarf in bright magenta. Floppy ears, fangs, black fur.." Ralsei! This was Ralsei! The live feeds even switched towards all showing repeats of a very limited set of video recordings showing Ralsei walk out of a broad set of doors that seems out of place for a run-down concrete block like the one the filigree frame was attached to.

To keep the infopage's attention before someone else had him switch subjects, he pointed right at him. "The second one! Where is he?"

Manuel placed his hands on his waist, glided a bit further back towards the hallway they came here through and nodded towards it as well. "Right next door. As they say, 'bad guys go to jail' and this one arrived and quickly found himself behind bars." Well this couldn't be right. How was Ralsei bad? He was the nicest person Kris could think of. No, this wasn't right. He swallowed down a creeping worry.

On one hand, he was hopeful he would meet him again, but on the other, why was he in prison? What could he have done that was so much worse than the things those brawlers were doing?

Without much more of a word, more or less mid-conversation, Kris turned right back to the hallway and began marching towards the exit.

"Hey!" His angry classmate screamed after him. "Where are you going? We're not done here?" Kris didn't listen and kept going, so Berdly saw no option but to run after him and grab him by his arm once he caught up. "Manners, Kris! You can't just buzz off like that! This is tremendously impolite! This guy was about to answer all our questions!" Kris didn't answer.

If Berdly wanted to ask Manuel more questions, he was welcome to, but Kris didn't feel like he wanted to spend any more time with this bird than he had to. He tried to move on, and wrestled his way out of the bird's grip. When he did, this bird shouted at him again. "Why are you in such a rush now? Huh?" He kept going. "Can't get back home to Mommy soon enough, huh?"

This was actually enough to get Kris to stop. He couldn't stand this bird going on about this over and over and over with everyone they met. He tried to distract himself from it. He tried to wait it out but it never ever stopped. He had long been picturing himself stabbing Berdly again just to keep himself from really doing it. His breathing was irregular. The continuous repetition was really getting to him. He took a second to calm down before he responded. "At least I have one you know."

Even now, when confused at what he said, that infuriating buzz never left that bird's voice. "Wait, what? What are you talking about?"

He caught himself almost spinning back and screaming at Berdly, at least for a moment, the impression of doing so flashed before his eyes. He wasn't as calm as he had hoped, so he stayed still, took a deep breath and then turned around slowly. He brushed his hair aside and faced Berdly head-on. "At least when I come home, I actually have a Mom that is actually there and not off to who-knows-where. She's at home when I come home, and I don't have to replace her with Noelle like you."

After that, he just turned back to the exit and stormed off, completely ignoring the bird's pleas for him to explain himself. "Say wha - hey! Hey! I'm talking to you!" All further screams that could still be heard from outside and half-way towards the police station were in vain. Kris' mind was made up.

He had no intention to wait with seeing if Ralsei was here any longer, just because this bird wanted to spend ages nigh interrogating this not quite so but still very annoying other bird. Even after the automatic doors closed behind his classmate, Berdly stayed in place. A full minute of awkward silence passed before he sighed and went back into the hall. He figured that Kris was too stubborn to get him back, at least for now.

Berdly was just left standing there, wondering what all this was about. Where was this stuff about 'replacing his mom with Noelle' coming from? Just because of some sleepovers? Kris had at least one point right. If Noelle were here with him instead of Kris, Berdly was sure by this point, they would both be safe at home and fast asleep again. With a tasty meal she cooked for supper rather than the ham sandwiches they had. He wondered how the day had been going for Noelle.

* * *

Noelle indulged Susie's sudden interest in playing cards for a few more parties of a different game from the first one, before she concluded that they probably did enough of that assignment. At least as much as Mrs. Alphys was going to expect from the other students. Besides, once at home, if she got at home, Noelle could still do some more of it on her own. They left school on the note of a promise though.

Tomorrow, she would bring her tarot cards, so she could show them all to Susie and spend time together, reading her fortune. That was one good thing she was looking forward to. She just hoped she would be allowed home when she actually went home. But she couldn't just go home on an evening before checking on her father.

Her legs were a bit shaky on the way there. Every time she went to the hospital, she felt anxious to go there, but she had to go. She wasn't sure why she felt this way. He said it was all fine. He only caught something. He was just there for a few tests. Just a few tests. She stopped at a crossing and looked up at the evening sun, already setting far enough for its relieving light to not quite reach her any more. It was a little later than she had planned to stay at school.

And this cold sensation sliding along her back would not let her go, it would envelop her even more when she set foot on nigh-white, soft blue floor. The nurse had long gotten used to her daily visits, so she didn't even look up from whatever she was reading on her desk while she greeted her. Just two more doors. After the first one, she stood in front of the last door to the ward her Dad was lying in and then opened it. Very, slowly. F

irst only by a crack, then gradually, she got herself to push it further open.

"Hey!", the long-yearned for voice of her father called from inside. "There's my lovable little pumpkin!" He immediately knew it was her. "What're ya waiting for. Come right in, let me look at you." She sighed and pushed it open far enough to step through. He wasn't alone. "How did things go with..." Noelle was startled at seeing her when she shouldn't have.

It was a grown woman, with grey fur and a pointy pink nose at the end of her face, surrounded by two strands of whiskers, stood at the sink and was washing an empty glass. She wore a dark grey suit, high quality, with a clean, white shirt and a light blue tie. She scratched the left one of her two conspicuous, round ears, and moved her hairless tail out of the way, but beyond that, she didn't care to react to Noelle entering, let alone to say hello.

"Don't worry'bout her. She doesn't bite." He was right. She was a friend of her mother's who worked at the town hall longer than her mother did. Sarah was her name. When her mother became the new mayor, she and Sarah grew very close. But that didn't go for her and Noelle.

Most of the time like she was right now, when she could avoid it without it looking too bizarre in front of a lot of people, she just ignored Noelle, as she usually did with Dad until the doctors found that thing that keeps him here. Ever since he was here, it was as though she was here every day at some point. Sarah picked up the glass and a bottle she must have brought with her, and left without saying goodbye.

"Humour her, she's had a very busy day." With his eyes half-shut, but still well-awake, her Dad beckoned her to come closer. "So how'd it go? You talk to her?" He was the only person she talked to about Susie. Which was why he already knew what was on her mind.

Noelle smiled. "Yes. We worked together and played cards for hours."

He chuckled and began stroking her forearm. "Did you say the thing?"

She couldn't help but chuckle with him and felt herself turn so red it must have shone through her fur. "N-no...I don't think I could that's...a bit out there."

"You just have to play it cool." He stared at her for a bit. "Okay maybe you're not the right kinda person to play it cool. Just wait till she least expects it and blurt it right out. See how she reacts. If it doesn't go your way, you can always say it was a joke."

This all was making her a bit light-headed and she felt a little too hot despite the air-conditioning keeping most of this place pretty cool. "I - I suppose so. I'll try...maybe." She raised her hand with her fingers twisted. "I can guarantee nothing."

He burst out in laughter, for quite a bit. Then he lost his breath and began to cough. For several seconds. He covered his mouth. He coughed long enough to have time cover his mouth. That hadn't been the case yesterday, but when he caught himself, he began rubbing her shoulder. "Don't look at me like that, I'm fine. In a week's time, I'll be up and ready, back in front of our gate. I promise."

She couldn't wait for that to happen.

She hoped it was going to happen.


	5. Needy Girls and Fluffy Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, Kris knew where to find Ralsei. The one person in the dark world that really mattered.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 05

Needy Girls and Fluffy Boys

* * *

Kris was hopeful. The person on the footage that Manuel described, it had to be Ralsei. He paced away from the tower and straight down the walkway, back to the precinct. This time, before entering, he touched the light. If anything happened after him leaving Berdly and the jester behind, he could always go back to this point. Knowing this, he gave the simply designed building one more good look. The power of law and order shined within him.

Inside, right around the corner from the entrance, was a counter with a nervous-looking police officer in a blue uniform sitting in a chair behind it. He had the insecure face of a beaver and the reason he seemed nervous to Kris, was that he was rapidly tapping his index finger on his side of the counter. At least he did until he noticed Kris come in. The counter was walled off with glass, bulletproof glass presumably.

The only opening connecting both sides was an indentation in the middle that spanned a bit into both sides of the wall, with a glass metal slide covering it that could be slid open and shut from inside, and a tray about as wide as the indentation that currently lay on the official's side. In sudden, twitching motions, the policeman's eyes shot up to the precinct's new visitor. He opened the slide so Kris could clearly understand him. "E-excuse me. Can - can I help you?"

"Yes. I'm looking for a prince. I heard you had one here."

The officer scratched his fuzzy chin and pulled up a little black booklet to flip through the pages. "Sorry, I - well we got someone who says he is a prince. Not sure if that was an attempt at an excuse, but I have it noted down anyway. Dressed like a wizard, black, long ears." It was him! Kris was relieved enough to almost forget about Berdly. He grabbed hold of the counter and beamed with anticipation. "But he's a suspect in custody. Sorry"

Kris let go of the counter. Something was wrong here. "That can't be right. What did he do?"

The officer pulled up another document. "Says right here he violated a whole bunch of regulations. Housing, fire and safety, who knows what else."

"How? Are you sure?"

The beaver nodded, never fully closing his mouth. "It's pretty cut and dry. I can get a copy of the paperwork if you like." He slid further back into his office and spun around his chair to pull a file out of a drawer opposite from the counter and came back to place it down in front of himself.

"Says right here he - and I'm not making this up, 'summoned' a door out of nowhere on an outside wall of a public building. With no regard for whether its placement was a good idea, and he had no permits saying he could do this. Could that wall be a supporting wall? Is the building stable enough to afford another door there? And how are people inside supposed to know which exit to use in case of a fire if there are just more exits than before, all of a sudden? Those are all very pertinent questions he didn't pay attention to."

He couldn't just leave him here. "Is there anything I can do to get him out?"

"Well he did at first have a few felonies dangling over his head, but when we first got to him, he didn't resist arrest, he was actually the one that approached us first. He came with us nicely when asked, he didn't even sit on our work time or delay things by asking for a lawyer or threatening legal action. Or try giving us any trouble whatsoever. He's just sitting in there. Waiting for something."

He shrugged. "Maybe he's waiting for you. Any brawlers just draw their weapons and shoot or get whole departments shut down if we so much as look at them the wrong way. He was so nice, especially by comparison, we got the DA to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor. That makes his bail a small fraction of what it was originally. If you got five thousand dark bucks, he's a free man."

A brief moment of relief, that was struck down mere seconds later. Kris checked multiple times, but he couldn't deny it. He thought he was loaded, but he only had about half the amount necessary on him. "Would you take two thousand? Two thousand five-hundred?

"Sorry." The beaver shrugged again. "We did what we could as is."

Kris stared down for a while. "Is...is there anything I can do to lower it more? I don't have five thousand. Please, did he look that dangerous to you? There's got to be some way for this to work."

The officer leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin. "Hm...we can't reduce it just like that. Not more than what the DA set it to. We got new regulations on that, what with the new mayor and all." Then he twitched. "Speaking of which, maybe we don't have to. Ever since the new mayor took over, times got desperate." He pointed all around the grey plates of the human's armor.

Which must have been visibly out of place for all these people wearing mid-twentieth-century themed clothing. "And you look familiar somehow, I'm just not quite sure where from." Kris wasn't sure whether blurting out that he was the lightner those brawlers seemed to be looking for was a good idea. It was best to just shrug and nod. The beaver's first reaction to him acknowledging his status as a foreigner was to lean on his side of the counter and point at him.

"There's that 'some way' you asked for. So listen up. Commissioner Brigham's on a missing's person's case right now. If you ask him for a job, there might be the cash you need in it for you. He's right here actually, over in an interview room talking to two people. It's a major case. The guy we're looking for has lots of friends all around the city. Everyone here wants to see him safe. That and we could really use his help with a few things right now. Problem is - you can guess - new mayor -we can't do anything on our own. Our hands are tied. We can't collect evidence, we can't frisk anyone, we can't ask anyone to open their bags, we can't defend ourselves when attacked, we can't even talk to anyone unless they talk to us first - the only reason we even could arrest your friend in the first place, is because the very first thing he did after he appeared, was ask an officer if he knew of any lightners showing up here. We used to go to the infopage next door for information, but even asking him is illegal now if you'e a cop. It's - it's."

He wiped the sweat that had gathered off of his forehead. Whatever this situation was, it was really bothering him. "The thing we need most right now, are helping hands from outside. Without help, we're never going to make any progress."

Well that was an opportunity, Kris guessed. And it explained why all those policemen were just watching when the brawlers attacked. But this left open bits that bugged him. "Why can't you do anything anyway?"

There was a bit of an awkward pause. Kris felt like he wasn't supposed to ask this for some reason. "New mayor and all that." Again, the officer stared at him, and only after a while his eyes narrowed. "Sheesh, you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Kris shook his head. "Have you been living under a - how far away are you from exactly?"

He had to think. This was still the same house as in the light world, so maybe there was something similar to the different floors. "Down under? Pretty far down under."

Him not knowing what this 'new mayor' thing was about seemed to really surprise the officer. He put his hands together, looked around and went on. "Guess it's a good thing the commissioner's busy. And I'm kind of waiting to hear how it went, so I don't have much to do either. Why don't you grab a chair and I tell you?" Beyond the hallway the counter was in, was a larger area presumably made for visitors.

More monsters in suit jackets with hats sat and stood in various places, all nervously sneaking glances at one door further in the back from time to time. The odd one here and there looking at Kris in a funny way, because of how he was dressed as far as he could guess. There were a few sittees, a water cooler with several officers gathered around it. Same with a coffee machine about a metre away.

And in the corners just next to the windows were a few cubicles with men in blue tapping their feet or twisting their thumbs in a manner similar to the one behind the counter. And further down another hallway past the door they were all weirdly fixated on, was a mouse, that frantically gnawed at a cheeseburger without actually eating it.

Kris tried to ignore the depressing atmosphere and just grabbed one of the chairs next to the table and brought it closer to the counter, even though upon sitting on it, he could barely look into the office on the other side, so he fetched another chair to stack on top of it before he sat down.

"Right then, so how much about this place do you know?" Kris went on to recount what little Jandsome had told about the citizens originally living spread out until the 'lightners' - Berdly probably - banished them into the canyon. "Okay, that's a start I guess. Thing was though that getting banished by itself wasn't all bad. But it is where our city growing stopped and our problems started. The brawlers were actually here before we were. Nasty bunch, all of them."

"Always out for blood, and everywhere they go, people start getting stabbed, shot or hooked on dust. We were lucky when we first got here, because we already had a fully operational police force. When they'd mug people, stab people to death, get caught selling dust, we just locked them up. Fast trials, no appeals. So mostly, everything was fine at first. And it stayed that way for a long, long time. Only that not too long ago, things changed. A lot. This 'knight' showed up."

"Guy completely covered in weird armor. He just asserted himself and threatened to kill everyone when he didn't get his way. He just kind of 'overthrew' our mayor of several years and instated a new one. A brawler. And it's the biggest and nastiest one I've seen in my life. He doesn't even have a forename, he's only called 'Don Gatore'. When that was over, the knight left, but the new mayor made a lot of changes."

"The moment he took office, the first thing he did was grant complete amnesty to all brawlers that were behind bars and had us set them free. Every single one. We had the commissioner talk to him about the exploding crime rate, but all that did was make him angry, so he just made bothering brawlers in any way illegal and started issuing all kinds of new laws on what we're not allowed to do. Police restriction after police restriction, and he hasn't stopped since."

"The only thing he does all day except issuing police restrictions is expropriating and homeowners, so now about a third or a fourth of the whole city is homeless and their homes remain empty." He sighed. "Well either way. What do you think? You ask for a job, if you find information that helps solve the case, you'll be swimming in so much cash, your friend could rob a bank and you could still bail him out." It was 'something' but he didn't feel like he could just leave Ralsei here.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. It'll be fine, it's not like your friend's running away or something. Besides, he's safer in here than anywhere out on the streets, what with the brawlers looking for him and all that."

That only made it even worse. "Why are they looking for him?"

The beaver shrugged. "I dunno. All I do know is the Don put out a hit on a few guys. All anyone's got for reference are descriptions and these crude drawings. And he kinda looks like one of them. Wait a sec." He slid back to open up and rummage through the same drawer, but a bit more deeply. "Your friend's lucky he went to us first. We only arrested him. If the brawlers had found him, he'd be swimming with the sharks right about now."

Once he found what he was looking for, he slid back and dropped a few pieces of paper on his side of the counter. The first one he spread out and pushed closer to the window, was a barely recognizable, coloured sketch of three characters. And the rough shapes and colour schemes were immediately recognizable to him. It was a drawing of Ralsei, Susie and himself. "Come to think of it..." The now intrigued officer picked it up and held it in place to compare the drawing to Kris.

"You kinda look like one of them,too. But that doesn't make any sense." The man grew increasingly uncertain all of a sudden. His motions turned a little more sudden. He tried to give it a good look a few more times to reassure himself that he wasn't imagining it, and got more agitated each time. This seemed to stir him up more than talking about Ralsei. He put down the picture and spread out the other sheets, which were printed on with lists.

"...bear with me here. I thought it wasn't relevant to anything we're allowed to investigate, so I didn't bother to sort it at the time. Help me here." He began reading a few points off one of those lists. "Would you personally say that 'pacifistic, low confidence, pushover, non-confrontational, uses magic' is an apt way to describe you?" Kris shook his head. "Didn't think so. Your friend said that's him. What about 'Simple-minded, impulsive, anger issues, highly violent, excessive appetite'?"

He declined again. "Okay, didn't seem that way to me either. What about - uh - outgoing, flirtatious, commanding, silent, shy, attacks on sight, resolves conflict peacefully...this one is just all over the place!" All the more to his confusion, did the human shoot him an affirming gesture. This was going to be the one.

The jumbled-up descriptions were exactly what Kris imagined it would sound like if someone tried to make sense of all the things he was compelled to do during his adventures with Susie.

"Goodness, that means..." He scoured along the sheet, reading off of it more that they seemed to have on him. He was even more shaken up when he found what he was looking for. Almost jumping in his seat, he pointed at a particular part of what must have been summarized points someone gathered watching him, Susie and Ralsei. "There it is! Lightner! You're a lightner!"

Considering what he had just heard about being a person that was wanted dead by the highest authority here, Kris was readying himself for incoming attacks and kept his hand ready to draw his sword. But that proved an unnecessary concern within a moment. "Come with me! He's definitely going to want to talk to you right now if this is true!"

The moment he had pointed at Kris and blurted out that he was from the light world, the surrounding officers in the hall were starting to turn his way and pay attention to him. While the now all the more sweaty beaver came stumbling out from a door a little in the back of his office. While he came to the front and led him to the hall, Kris could see all the other people slowly shift their tone. He could even hear them mumble things like: "A lightner?"

"Another one? This one is bigger."

"How are they all getting here?"

When he arrived at the door in question, the beaver was already peeking inside and talking to whoever was there. All their visitor could do for the time being is stand outside and listen. "And what makes you so sure he is one?", a loud, grumbled voice asked.

"I've got a match for their doodles."

The already loud voice just gained quite a bit in volume and turned all the more annoyed. "What? Again? How do they keep wandering in here? Why here of all the places?" He heard a sigh. "What does it matter. Where is he? Well, then open up that door! Let me have a look!" With an anxious haste, the beaver obliged his superior, opened the door all the way and gestured Kris to enter.

While he did so, the doodle in question was handed to a very upset looking brown bird with ruffled feathers black spots. A lit cigar hung off the side of his beak and he wore a black suit jacket made of about as robust-looking a fabric as you could use without making it look too informal. While Kris came closer, he held up the picture to make the same comparison as his subordinate.

"That's a match alright. At least as much as you can. Not like one of those brawler scumbags ever went to art school." Neither did Kris, but he was fairly confident he was able to do better than those barely coherent strikes.

"Well done." As though that was enough, the trembling beaver nodded and rushed outside, presumably back to his office in case more people came in here. "And as for you." Commissioner Brigham took the cigar out of his mouth. "Since everyone who wanders in here seems to know each other somehow, do you recognize those two?"

He nodded toward the other side of what was - counter to his expectation, not the kind of table you expected to see in a room for interrogations, but rather a conference table. On the other side sat two more people. Slightly hunched and drawn together, sat a human woman who must have been ridiculously tall if she wasn't almost curled together like that. Her smooth, blond hair was so long, it reached down to the floor, and her legs were impossibly long as well.

She wore a warm, long coat that covered everything, it was long enough to cover her entire body even if she had been standing. She was sobbing, her face was drenched in tears that she could barely wipe off fast enough to get a break, and those had long smeared all the makeup around her eyes down along half her cheeks. The other person that sat next to her, trying to cheer her up, was a little girl. A bird with bright orange feathers and dressed in an orange raincoat.

The colour had thrown him off for a second, so it took him a little to recognize by the shape of her beak and her overall face, that it was Berdly's little sister. "So?" The surprise must have startled him for so long, the commissioner was already getting impatient. Do you?"

"Y-yes..." Kris rushed right around the table to talk to the little girl from up close. "What are you doing here?"

Her response was completely nonchalant and bore no hint of her thinking it was surprising or worrysome for her to be here, she responded with as much of a smile she could muster with this human woman she was apparently familiar with, crying right next to her. "We're looking for Scott."

Right, the plastic doll she was missing, but that didn't explain her presence. "Yes, but how did you even get here?"

"We flew here, with a plane."

The unsettling grunts of the chief behind him startled him for a moment. "Janice right here's got friends in a lotta places. Got flown in here calling in a favour, and we owe her and her boyfriend lots of favours, too. But before you dig your nose into this too far, come right back here. Why are you here anyway?"

Kris tried his best to explain the entire situation he had discussed with his subordinate just before in a few sentences. Including the part of wanting a job in hopes of bailing out Ralsei. It only seemed to worsen the commissioner's mood even more.

He grunted and ground his cigar against the bottom of an ash tray near the edge of the table. "And again, the system's being a roadblock in all the wrong places while it doesn't get done what it's supposed to. Look, I get ya. About the job, congratulations, you're hired." He gave Kris a quick handshake and began making his way outside.

Well that went fast. "I've got an idea what to do about your friend, just wait here, I'll be right back. He could worry whether he could trust any of these people later, should they actually reveal that he can't.

For the time being, it was best to find out more about this missing person. He sat down at the table the woman didn't seem like she was in a condition to talk. "Wait, so before you flew here, how did you get where you started flying from?"

"From the airport of course."

"Yes, but what airport? Where exactly?"

"I dunno, just an airport. Debbie brought me here." The moment she said 'Debbie's name, the human woman cried all the more. Of course. She was here to look for the Scott doll she couldn't find. And then this woman was the corresponding Debbie doll, or rather what she looked like in the dark world.

"Stop callin' her Debbie, dammit!" The angry commissioner had come back from whatever errand he was off running. "Her name's Janice! Janice! And he's not called Scott, his name's Pilot. And you, get back up." He gestured Kris to come closer. He was now holding a little box filled with two stacks of bills.

"You said you only got enough to pay half the little black guy's bail. These are four thousand dark bucks. Three thousand so you can pay your friend's bail and get him out right now, and another thousand for expenses you might run into. Consider 'em a pre-paiment. Or a loan. You can work it off as you go." Kris' eyes widened. These policemen were willing to watch people get killed to abide those nonsense laws and here he was, just giving him a pile of money to free Ralsei.

He stared at the commissioner for a while. Then he finally put his thoughts into words. "I'm pretty sure there's some law against this."

The commissioner chuckled and began pulling a box of cigars out of a pocket on the inside of his jacket. "Like I care anymore. I played along with 'em for too long. Frankly, I lost trust in the system the moment that cocksucker of a mayor banned arresting brawlers. If there's already two lightners here, that's good enough for me to believe the lightners are on our side. And since you're officially on the case as a police advisor, we might as well get you up to speed."

He sat down at his table, in front of two closed folders and opened them up. "Person we're looking for is called Pilot. And he's a Pilot. A pilot called pilot. Almost like he was made to be one. Here's a pretty good picture." He pulled out one photo of Pilot standing next to Janice and saluting with a smile. They both seemed happy actually. He had well-kept brown hair, striking facial features and muscles that you could see through his uniform. And he was just as tall as the woman.

"Long story short, him and Janice here have been together for years, and everything was hunkey-dorey for as long as anyone can remember. Until one day, earlier today actually, he just up and left. Came to Canyon City, acted weird in front of everyone he talked to, went to a bar, bought a bunch of booze and then just vanished. Completely. And right after that, all hell broke loose."

"You mean the new mayor?"

"No, that came quite some time before. It's uh - it's over. That's what matters. If it ever happened again, you'd know what I'm talking about right away. That said, you wanna free your friend, right?" All those worries he had about him not being able to see Ralsei again, they were melting away along with the frown that kept his smile away. He nodded and was directed back outside. "Then wat'cha waiting for? Take the money, go ahead. None of us are running away."

The moment he said that, Kris grabbed the Money and, holding onto them tightly, rushed back to the counter at the entrance of the building.

"Huh? What?" The beaver had gone right back to absentmindedly tapping his finger on the table and was surprised to see Kris come back so soon. "Oh." He quickly began to get an idea what this was about though, when he saw Kris place down stacks of bills and open his bag to pick together a third stack. "Is this what I think it..." He didn't need to finish that sentence before Kris nodded.

Once the stacks were placed in the tray and slid over to the beaver's side, he began sifting through both stacks to assure himself that it was the right sum, and took his time doing it. Kris was calm. He could wait, as long as this meant Ralsei was going free. Soon, the officer placed the third stack on the side. "That's it, five thousand." He slid his chair back to fetch a few forms and began signing them and adding notes. "Okay, that'll be it. Follow me."

Now a lot less nervous than before, he got up and left his office to guide Kris through a different hallway deeper into the building, past more doors, behind some of which were conference rooms, and windows showing the interview rooms behind closed doors. The plain white walls of their holding cells at the heart of the building seemed almost designed to make the dirt and traces of dust on them visible. An inexplicable excitement took hold in his spine.

He couldn't believe this was happening, it felt like a dream come true, moreso than being in the dark world. And then, once they passed a few cells with scraped metal bars, obscured behind the cold metal of the only cell that wasn't damaged beyond recognition, he sat on a bench. Wrapped in the same green robe and the same dark-pink scarf, looking down on the floor. The sight would almost have broken his heart, if Kris didn't know that it would change very soon. "Hey, get up."

Surprised and soon with a warm glow in his eyes, the cervine bag of goodness looked up to see who was visiting. "Kris! You're here."

"Yeah, and he paid your bail. You're a free man." The beaver got his key out to unlock the cell door, swung it wide open and then stepped aside.

Relieved beyond everything, Kris almost ran around the cell wall, inside it, and before Ralsei could do much else, ran his arms under his to pull him into an embrace. "Kris..." It was hard to explain why he was so happy. Or so emotional in general all of a sudden. It felt like a lot of the baggage bubbling up now was always there, now he just had someone he could let it show with. He was just glad that he got this far and brushed his head against the darkner's fuzzy cheek.

When Ralsei first taught him how fighting worked in the dark world, the 'player' made him hug Ralsei. Again and again. Someone like Ralsei must have had some major significance for them, and finally meeting Ralsei again, after only a day had passed, he couldn't blame them for it. He had only met him twice, but something about his warm touch made him feel like he had known him almost his whole life.

Like he could tell him anything that concerned him and Ralsei would just listen and not somehow use it against him. He was close to tears, his mouth was trembling. He was out of breath even though there was no reason to be.

Between how little meaning there was to most things in the 'light world', the supposedly changed Susie turning on him as soon as there was something to make fun of, and Berdly's endless screeching here in the dark world, seeing Ralsei again was just the change he needed. The darkner hugged him back, but when Kris held him a little more tightly, he let go. "...Kris, you're hurting me."

"I'm sorry." He let go of him, but the wide, smile wouldn't leave his face, even if he tried to make it.

The beaver giggled and waved towards the hallways they had come from. "All right, you two lovebirds. I've got to get back to my post. Off you go." And so they did. Hearing and feeling Ralsei's steps right behind him, now he finally felt like everything was going to get better from here. He didn't really feel confident that they could make it through this dark realm before, he was just grasping at straws for the most part.

As the commissioner had said, the two guests were still there waiting for them with him when Kris and Ralsei were back. "Good, now that you're all together, I can't wait to send you all outta here."

The white light of Ralsei's eyes grew a little taller. "Why does it sound like you're trying to get rid of us?"

"Because I am. The sooner you get out of here, the safer it gets in here. Every minute one of you three from that doodle is in here is a minute where those scumbags could be kicking our door in to get to you. The worst thing that could happen is if that pink hairy one showed up as well. That said, here you go." He picked up a blue leaf binder that hadn't been on the table when Kris had left. It was filled with sheet protectors, most of them empty, but the ones in the front were not.

"Got everything I think you need in there, so you don't have to come back. My number, a few others' numbers, the number of every police station in this city, the number of Janice over here, the address of the bar Pilot visited before he vanished, the number of the same bar, I gathered a copy of everything we got in there."

While he was going on, Ralsei snuck around the table and kneeled down to be eye to eye with Berdly's sister. And who would you be, young lady?" Kris told him that that was who she was.

"Pluma." Janice had calmed down by now, even though her tears left their mark on her face. But at least, this left Pluma in a bit of a better mood.

"That's a nice name." He got up and returned to the commissioner. "The door this is all about, is it still there?"

"Oh god, you're not planning on making more of those, are you?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No need to worry. I just need the one. I suggest Pluma and the nice lady here come with us. The door will take us to a place that offers more safety than any of your stations can offer."

"We got word on that by the way. The building's fine. No new exit and it seems solid enough not to have to worry. But please, for the love of everything that is holy, don't make any more doors. It's a nightmare for anyone doing the paperwork."

Kris gave him a questioning look. "Don't worry, Kris. Some of the policemen visited me from time to time, they told me everything about what is happening outside. I knew that if I just wait for long enough, you would find me. But how did you find me so fast?" He told them all he knew about the tall, blue but otherwise human-looking, medieval jester who led them here.

It seemed to spark Mr. Brigham's interest. He pulled the cigar out of his mouth and pointed it Kris' way. "Did this guy tell you where exactly he had been last before he met you in the cliffs? Had a few guys spot him too, right after all the weird stuff stopped happening."

He declined. "Only that he's a travelling jester. Why?"

"Hey, Reg!" He called for an officer, who brought a block of paper and a pen with him. "I got some stuff for you to note down. I've got a feeling that's somewhat related to the weird stuff that had been happening. Might even relate to the Pilot case. And you guys, off you go. Nothing's keeping you. You're not losing contact with us."

When Janice got up and followed them with the little girl, Brigham stopped them. "Lady, no-one's forcing you to follow those guys."

That didn't seem to do much to stop her. With his hand pressed against her coat, she just wandered right past him. "I am aware." She was still sniffy from before. "But they feel like my best hope. Please don't take this the wrong way."

The commissioner smiled - for once. "No offense taken. If you need anything we can help with, you got our number."

While the four of them got ready to leave, Ralsei further encouraging Pluma and Janice to follow, every step of the way, the commissioner's face finally relaxed. He followed them just outside of the conference room and raised his voice to call for the attention of all the officers present. "Right now, listen up everyone. We're gonna change up how we operate just a bit. Blind eyes are on the table from now on. We got two lightners on our side." Everyone in the hall cheered to that.

Those that had cups or glasses in their hands raised them. "Maybe we even got a third one coming soon. Let's hope they can find Pilot!" Then he heard him speed up to catch up with them. "And lightners." Most of his anger and annoyance was gone from the smiling bird's face, and he had put out his cigar as well. "Something you might need. Haven't seen either of you armed, you might need it for self-defense."

Kris was surprised to see what he saw in the box the commissioner had been handed to present to them. He was giving them a firearm. A one-handed pistol with a modern, blocky shape to its barrel, along with a few boxes of ammunition. Kris was about to decline, when Ralsei stepped closer, gladly accepted it and stuffed both the weapon and the ammunition in two of the pockets in his robe.

"And about the loan. Here's one way you can pay it off even before you solve the case. Brawlers are flying blind. All the cameras all over the city are useless to them. We can't just march out on the streets and arrest them, that's start an open war and all the citizens would get caught in the crossfire. But what we can do is not stop you from doing so. As long as you got no witnesses, if you can take them out or bring them to any station to get them locked up, we're gonna do it and deduct a reward from that loan. Maybe even pay you part of it to keep you going. It's about time that we started playing dirty. Brawlers don't give a damn about the law, why should we?"

One more time, everyone in the room cheered at the four people leaving the building.

* * *

Noelle spent some more time with her Dad that day. And even now, there was uncertainty in every step of hers while she walked outside. It had already been growing dark when she came to the hospital, now, while little light remained, she could already see the stars. Time had run out more quickly than she had hoped. Noelle's time felt best spent around her father. There was a disturbing silence to how the leaves slowly shook back and forth in the wind.

They had lost their colour in the dark. Noelle knew they would regain it in the morning when the sun rose. But she could already feel that this wouldn't last for too long. She wasn't in a hurry, even though she knew she should have been. She knew where she was going, she was only setting herself up for disappointment. And yet, she had to. She already knew what was coming, but she couldn't keep spending the night at other people's homes. She already spent the last night at Catti's.

She was thankful enough to have a reliable friend like that that would let her. She knew what she was getting herself into, she didn't want to, she could feel that there was only a small chance that there was any point to it. She forced herself to move closer to the imposing pillars of the town hall. Each of them a multitude wider than her and poised to crush her without batting an eye, should the smallest part give in. Step by step, she carefully ascended the stairs and entered.

The walls looked a little grayer, every time she came here. The looks of the secretary and the other monsters all waiting for their own, sparsely spread appointments to come around, more weary and impatient every time they saw her enter.

"What is it you want?", the talking hand asked her, knowing full well she was here because it was her only way to go home.

She could feel her deep red fingernails stare at her. But she had to bring out those words. She had to. "I-i-i...I want to see Mo- the mayor. I would like to know if I - if I could talk to the mayor...please."

"I am afraid she is very busy. She has no time for insignificant things like family visits."

"Please...please just see if...I only need to talk to her for a second. Not even a minute...please, I can't go home otherwise."

"Sorry, this is how it works. 'No visits outside of appointments', the next one is scheduled to be in an hour and is already taken by the gentleman over there." She pointed to a badger in a suit who stared at the picture next to the counter.

"I'm sure if - if it's only in an hour...then what is she doing now?"

The hand remained motionless. "Being busy."

"No..." Mom was doing it again. Noelle was homeless and she didn't even know why. "...no. She can't be doing this. I beg you, just ask if she could..."

They both turned to the door to her mother's office, when it opened from inside. She was a lawyer, among other things, for her mother. Laughing and perfectly relaxed was coming through, with her bare tail swinging left and right in an elaborate motion. She was startled at seeing Noelle. The corners of her mouth dropped ever so slightly, and with her head still pointing up, she stared at her for a few seconds.

With an annoyed sigh, she unlocked the auto-locked office door with her key and opened it. For a brief moment, Noelle could catch a glance at her mother. "It's Noelle."

Her mother rolled her eyes and came outside. And even once she knew it was her own daughter asking to talk to her, and why, she looked every bit as indifferent as she always did in recent times. Noelle stared at those dead eyes, atop the grotesque and yet angry-looking face of the deer-like Monster she was. She put on what Noelle recognized to be a frown, in spite of her vertical mouth and the mandibles she had instead of jaws.

She too gave a contemptuous-sounding sigh from her, but after a moment's consideration, she begrudgingly stuck her hand in the pocket of her jeans. She wore jeans, when everyone else, even Sarah, wore a full suit. At last, she handed Noelle what she wanted for days. The key to their gate and the front door of her home.

She was so happy to be able to come home again, even if it was only for tonight. "Thank, you Mom..." The moment Noelle had the key in her hand, she tried to rush past the retreating hand to give her mother a hug, maybe even a kiss. Her mother just backed off as fast as she had to, to get away from her and went back to her desk. As soon as she did, Sarah stepped to the side to physically block Noelle's way before she turned around and pulled the door shut again.

And with the automatic lock of the door sliding in place, went Noelle's last chance at seeing her mother for the day. By the time she came home from work, Noelle would long be asleep, or would have to pretend to be to not get into trouble.

She pulled herself together, made sure the key was stored safely in her bag and left the building. As soon as that was back outside, she began to rush home. The autumn wind was so cold now. It seeped right through her clothes, no part of her was safe from it. It felt like the void above and around her was gradually swallowing her and leaving no life behind. Her face grew tense, and she could feel her eyes grow uneasy at once. She lodged her jaws together and walked past one more crossing.

Fully expecting a car to rush in and end it, but none came. Every single interaction with her mother felt like a dagger being lodged into her heart, and with all the daggers that accumulated, there wasn't much of it left. She knew this was a bad idea. She knew how it would feel. She didn't let herself stop until she was long past the gates and half-way through the little path that led to their big house's front door. The big house they got when her mother became the new mayor.

With so much room to put between one another. Her legs grew weaker, she had to stumble her way to the door. The hedges Dad and uncle Asgore had cut, that were spread across every bit not covered in trees or the pond at the side, were already growing out of shape. The grass was already growing taller.

She wished it was raining. Rain would wash so much her way. The patter would shroud the subtle sounds of sorrow she couldn't suppress and cover the rest of her face in cold water. She was going to be embarrassed if someone saw her like this and brought it up on the next day. Not to mention if she was in the rain like this, maybe she would get a cold. She didn't feel like getting up. If she had a cold, she had an excuse to just stay in bed, wait for the day to pass.

And only get up to get something to drink. At least until Dad got better, she would be safe that way. Even though she knew she wouldn't be so lucky. There would be no rain, she would have to venture outside and find ways to distract herself.

Dad had to get better. She needed to wait until Dad got better. She wouldn't feel safe again until he did. She had to hold on until he was up and back home. Until then, she had to distract herself. Find anything to do to think of something else. Tarot cards. She had to focus on remembering to bring her tarot deck. She had to hold onto Susie. Susie would get her through this. She had to. Even in the light of the chandeliers that hung from her home's ceiling, a dark shadow loomed over her and would never let her go.


	6. Two Handsome Devils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ralsei learns that Kris' freedom also means that he is free to be less agreeable than he could be. Meanwhile, between Berdly and Jandsome, a conflict begins to brew on how to search for the other prince.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 06

Two Handsome Devils

* * *

"So." As soon as they had made it all the way to the walkway and off the premises, Ralsei turned around to Kris. "Now wait. There's something I'd like to be sure of, before we move on. Could you open up your inventory and keep it open?" Not sure what he was on about, Kris pulled out the bag and opened it wide. While he did, Ralsei took a step or two forward and began circling around, looking up at the sky.

While he was still staring upwards, searching for something, the little girl walked up to him and pulled at the sleeve of his robe. "What are you doing?"

"I can't see the party menu anywhere. There should be a menu up there with little pictures of me and Kris and some stats on our health and how much damage we can deal."

"The party what?"

Ralsei wasn't paying much attention to the curious girl. "But it can't be gone unless...this isn't a game any more."

Kris came closer to him. "The player is gone."

Ralsei was surprised enough to find himself stumbling backwards a bit. His glowing eyes widened. "The player is gone...then it's true! The- Kris, do you even know what this means?"

"I can do what I want."

"It means this isn't a game any more. It isn't the same game anymore. Anything could happen from here on in. We could take things anywhere we want. I - I need some time to think of the possibilities. All the things I could do - that we could do!" He noticed himself that he was getting over excited, hopped up and down for a moment and closed his eyes to take a deep breath.

"Sorry. Got a little carried away there. First things first. This city is a dangerous place. If Pluma's brother is here, we should fetch him before we go anywhere."

Kris raised his open hand and stopped Ralsei right there. "Yes, let's not. He'll get along fine, I think." He had his fair share of Berdly for the day.

The prince's eyes narrowed. "Kris. What are you even saying?"

"I said let's not. I want to see how well he does on his own."

"There's dangerous people everywhere and you just want to leave him alone? That's not a way to treat a friend."

"Who said he is a friend?" Kris led the way in walking along the road, and was glad to notice Ralsei and the girls following him.

"I thought he was your classmate."

"That doesn't make him a friend."

"Kris." Ralsei had a very stern expression on his face. "Don't you care about him in the the least?"

He didn't even look back. "No. Let him run into brawlers and get shot."

Now, a stern little girl was even catching up and speaking up. "Hey, that's not very nice, mister!" Even if it was only so slight, that same annoying buzz was in Pluma's voice that was in her brother's.

And Ralsei could only smile at that. "She's right you know." Kris knew immediately was trying to do, giving him this charming smile. Kris could immediately feel the corners of his mouth get tense from fighting the smile when he saw him.

And he looked all the more disappointed, when he realized that it didn't work. "We're not fetching Berdly. He wouldn't want to come along anyway."

"No, why would you think that?" Kris said nothing. He just moved on, until they were far enough around a corner that they couldn't see the information tower any more. Then he asked Ralsei to lead the way to his door. From this point onward, when asked more questions or begged to talk to either of them, he simply refused.

As time went on, the questions became less about why not to meet back up with Berdly, and more about whether he was upset with Berdly or that jester and what was upsetting Kris so much. And even when Ralsei was starting to deduce bits and pieces of what made Kris refuse to talk, that didn't change the fact that he did. He just couldn't be bothered. Right now, he just wanted to see what was behind that door and relax for a bit.

Worst case scenario, they would have to fight their whole way to the city hall without Berdly and only drag him along in the very end to help seal the fountain. That was going to take ages, and ages with only him and Ralsei, but at least it was better than taking him along.

He did give up eventually. At least for a while, they were quiet. Until they were past the crossing of a bigger road and closer to the square. That was when Ralsei broke the silence. "Aren't you curious? Don't you want to know what's behind that door?" Ralsei was trying to get him to talk, and Kris knew that was just so he could try to turn things around to meeting up with Berdly. He could figure what was behind that door anyway. "You won't find out until you ask."

The campy tune of the ringtone on Janice's phone interrupted him. Someone was calling. Again. Everyone stopped and she fumbled the phone out. The last two times, whoever was on the other end just hung up the moment she took the call. This time, she took the call, and judging by how much she wrinkled up and raised one eyebrow, whatever she was hearing was very bizarre, and upon seeing the questioning looks from everyone around, she put the call on speaker.

"Stop it!" It was Berdly, and he sounded like he was physically strained. "It's just one phone ca - hello? He-" That was it. Hung up again.

"That's Berdo!", burst out of Pluma.

Janice kneeled down to hold her by the shoulders of her raincoat. "Is that your brother?"

"Yes!" At least they knew now that Berdly was alive. And he didn't sound like he was in actual danger, if Kris had to guess, it sounded more like someone was trying to wrestle the phone out of his hand.

The only adult of the group absentmindedly looked through something on his phone and eventually found what she was looking for. "He didn't suppress his number."

This drew Ralsei's attention. "Perfect, just call him then, and ask him if he's all right."

She obliged. And this time, she put it on speaker phone from the start. And he did pick up. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, my friend here's just..." There was more audible struggling going on mid-sentence. "What is wrong with y-" That was all there was, then the call was closed again. It seemed pretty clear cut to Kris. It must have been to anyone paying attention. How they got Janice's number was secondary in Kris' opinion. Berdly and Jandsome were fine, but they appeared to disagree on whether they should call her.

It didn't matter either way. Now Ralsei knew for certain that they were all right, at least for now, and would get off Kris' case about them. "It isn't far any more anyway. Let's hurry." Ralsei led them towards a detour that circled quite a bit around the wider area to avoid too much exposure and once they had made a wide circle around that entire area, he gestured for them to stop. "We had better run that last part. Stay close." They snuck around the corner of the last crossing they passed.

From here, Kris could see where they were heading. They were behind the square with the broken fountain, behind the large building at the end of it. On its back wall was a door. A tall and wide, solid-looking black double door with golden framing in the pattern of vines around it. In the middle of it glowed the symbol of the church. The Delta Rune. He recognized the door and knew where from. And it all but confirmed his original suspicion of where they were going.

They began to spurt, run even. Janice led Pluma by the hand, until they were going so fast, Pluma couldn't keep up on her own, so the human woman just picked her up. They were careful not to stumble upon the multiple steps, first from the street onto the beige bricks, then up the stairs that surrounded the building. A little more than half-way, when they were already hopping up the stairs, he heard something.

"Hey! Wait up!" And a quick glance to where it came from, down the street they had crossed to get here, showed Kris it was exactly as he had feared. It was a raptor with a spiky green hairstyle and spiked armbands just like the ones Susie had in the dark world. Ralsei swung his hand forward and the doors opened by themselves.

It wasn't far, they just made sure to cross that last bit. Kris almost stumbled from the shock when he heard a gunshot, but wound up speeding up all the more. He waited at the door to help pull Janice past the doors, and the moment they were past them, the heavy doors slammed shut with an impact you could feel and hear all around.

Silence. The doors were closed. A very welcome silence that Kris was afraid wasn't going to come.

Once they all calmed down, they had their chance at further verifying where they had gone. And Kris recognized it immediately. The black walls, the bricks of stone, the blue light of the candles and torches being the only source of light outside of the internally lit buildings save for the stars above in the distance behind the castle, and the black mass coursing into the sky from within said castle. They were back in Ralsei's kingdom, where Ralsei himself was the only inhabitant.

And if this was a door like the door they crossed to get to the card kingdom, the brawlers probably couldn't get through it either. And the prince confirmed this as well. "As long as we stay here, we're safe. Not long now, let me open up someplace comfortable for you." He marched right up to one of the many empty houses on the right side. With a quick shake of his hand, he summoned a key and unlocked the front door with it. Inside were the very basics of a place to stay.

There was a staircase up to a more narrow floor, an area to relax with an empty sittee and a comfy chair, an open kitchen, a fireplace that Ralsei lit while entering, an empty bookshelf, everything you expected for someone who moved in and needed basic accommodation, or at least the possibility of it, provided there was food and something to read. "Make yourselves comfortable, you two. They can't get to you here."

Once the two guests that hadn't yet been here entered, he began to make his way outside.

"Where are you going" When he was about to rush back outside, Janice grabbed the prince by the wrist.

He gave her a warm smile. "Fetching some reading material for you." Once she let go of him and sat down on the couch to watch over Pluma, the prince led Kris outside and closer to the main castle. "I hope you understand that I'm not bringing them here. Humans, monsters and dark princes aren't a good mix if you want to keep your fountain intact." He gestured Kris to take a step back, approached the door on his own and pulled one of them open.

"I can finally show you my castle. Come on, it isn't dangerous." Carefully, Kris peeked in past the door. The walls surrounding everything behind it were as black as outside, but in the distance, above, he could see the inner rooms of the castle glowing in light blue like the inside of all the houses. When he passed by Ralsei, the prince grabbed him by the elbow and led him further inside.

"Welcome to my very own castle. Now that this isn't a game any more, I don't have to wait for the final chapter to show you any of this, I can do it any time I want. If we get your friend here, we can do it tonight!" Inside, two rows of corridors branched off to their left and right side. Ralsei paced a little ahead and took a turn to the right. These corridors were separated from the massive courtyard that surrounded the dark fountain, only through railings, arcs and pillars.

You could breathe the fresh air of the courtyard even from there. When Kris followed Ralsei, he was standing at the foot of a staircase that they walked up. "I can do this any time by the way." Kris gave him a questioning look. "Open doors such as the ones we came through, to any dark realm you go to. Wherever you go, I can find a way to get to you. So even in the worst of times, if you think you are not safe anywhere, you can always come here."

After passing the staircase, they got to a floor that matched the outside form of the castle. Kris couldn't help but take a moment to take a look at this. Both walls, save for the windows, were covered in book shelves, filled to the brim with all kinds of literature. Some cleanly bound, some old and used with the corners of pages hanging out. And he only saw the wall being covered so much after walking through one of the rows of bookshelves that filled the entire room.

It wasn't walled off to the left and right through, led straight into the rest of the castle's southern interior. Seamlessly. When he came back to the prince, they climbed further up the stairs, to another floor, this one apparently dedicated to feasts. The part of the floor they arrived at had an insanely long dining table that took up half the width of the southern side. It was covered by a flawlessly smooth table cloth that ran along its entire length.

Chairs lined every possible bit of room for a seat, festoons hung off the ceiling, surrounding the chandeliers that filled the hall with bright blue light. Off in the distance, beyond the end of the table, Kris could spot the counter of what appeared to be a kitchen. He couldn't imagine what all the rooms in the back were for. They walked up to the end of the table that was close to the kitchen.

Once he stood at the right angle, he could see that behind the wall right behind it, there were more rooms dedicated just to the kitchen. And the open part of the kitchen he could see already included everything he could imagine you would need to feed a normal crowd. Ralsei brought him to one of the chairs and Kris understood that he was supposed to sit down. "Give me just a second."

Ralsei vanished into one of the many back rooms that lay beyond the wall and soon thereafter, returned bringing with him a spoon and a plate with a readily baked cake. He placed both on the table and stepped back. "Please, enjoy. I made plenty." After vanishing back to the same room he got this cake from, he came back with two more cakes and spoons. After that, he went down the stairs and left Kris alone here. The prince's visitor stared at the smiling face on his cake.

It had a dark surface, thinly applied icing formed the outline of the glowing parts of Ralsei's face with little arcs making the eyes to make it smile like Ralsei's dummy did, and thick green icing the part of his hat that hung down enough to make it into the circular frame of the cake's surface. Finally, some actual silence. The kind of silence he preferred to the one he already had before. He liked it when not only there was nothing to hear, but there was no-one to hear or see him either.

For once, in what felt like a long time, there was nothing immediate to do. Just some time with himself, to stare at Ralsei's face on the table and think.

Something that occurred to him upon thinking about Janice and Berdly's strange phone calls, was that he still had his own phone as well. He pulled it out of a little bag in his armor. It was unchanged, for the most part. When he first fell into the dark world, back with Susie, the very first thing he did, even if it was under the player's hand, was to call Mom.

He didn't have much of an idea how much time had passed since he and Berdly fell into the dark world, but if enough time did pass, Mom was bound to be worried sick. He could already picture her standing in front of Berdly's house with the car, wondering why Kris and Berdly didn't answer when she rang the bell or tried to call. Or yet worse, pacing up and down their home, wondering what might have happened to him. This was as good an opportunity as any to try calling her again.

But doing so only yielded the same strange, metallic sound it did the day before. He tried it again. Again with that noise. Again, again with the noise. Again, and again the noise. He tried once more, and for once, there was no noise. Instead, it led him to a prerecorded message.

It was the voice of a woman, an islander from overseas judging by the accent. "Hello. You have reached the mailbox of Doubleyou Dee Gee. Please stop calling your mother from the dark world." That last bit hit home well enough for him to stop trying.

Soon enough after that, Ralsei came back up the stairs. "Phew, I had to run twice to get them books. This should keep them entertained for a while. Now then, Kris! You didn't even touch your cake!" That wasn't true. He had stared and poked at it slightly with a spoon. The prince sat down next to him, not facing the table, but his guest. "What is wrong? Don't you like it? You won't know if you do until you try."

Kris looked up from the mostly untouched delicacy to find his prince smiling and heard him faintly chuckle. Only to stare back down at the cake again. "It is not the cake, is it?" Kris shook his head. "Makes sense. If it was that you don't like it, you would have at least tried it. It's whatever you're upset about with Berdly, is it not? Come on, just try it. I know you will feel better if you do." He began rubbing Kris' shoulder.

Even if a bit unwilling, the prince's guest scooped up some of the black mass and the right corner of the face's mouth and tried it. It was sweet. Very sweet. And with a note he could guess was the taste of some fruit he hadn't tried yet. Possibly even a fruit that didn't exist in the light world. He nodded and smiled to confirm that he liked it. "Good, very good. That means I can keep them all. It would have been a shame if I had to throw them away."

Ralsei laughed, even though his laughter sounded more like a sigh of relief than actual laughter.

How many of these did he...why not outright ask? "How many of these cakes did you make?"

"Four or five..." He stopped and stared past Kris towards the back door of his kitchen. "...dozens. I wasn't sure how any I would need."

"I don't think I can eat four dozen cakes."

Ralsei waved this concern right away. "No need to. I can store them for a long time. It hinged upon whether you like them."

Kris wasn't sure whether Ralsei was only lying to make him feel better about all those wasted cakes should they go bad. "I mean the dark world works differently. I could try."

His prince began gently ruffling his hair. "I'm hoping some day when we have time. I could take you here and I could stuff your face with cakes all day." With a spoon with another bite mere inches from his mouth, Kris paused and looked back at Ralsei. He had this strange smile on his face that he had at odd times and his cheeks were glowing in bright red.

It took the prince a moment longer than expected to become aware of his guest looking at him. When he did, he pulled his hand back and tried to make his smile look more collected, but it wound up looking more awkward than before. "But - but only if you wanted that of course." The red glow wasn't going away, Kris got the sense that Ralsei wanted it to, and the prince continued to try to laugh it off ever so slightly.

It was best if Kris changed the subject. "So what are we going to do about Pilot?"

A lot more relaxed, the prince turned around to sit towards the table. "Let's worry about people we actually know are in danger first. What is your problem with Berdly? What did he do?"

"He didn't really do anything."

"You said he's your classmate but also that he's not your friend. Even if he didn't really do anything, there must be something he did not-really do."

The cake was really good. Kris had already eaten quite a chunk off of it by this point. "He - uh - he said he'll be fine on his own. besides, we don't need him to seal the fountain. The city fountain I mean, not this one. We still have Pluma, right?"

Ralsei shuffled his chair a little closer. "Kris, that's an awful thing to say. We can't just abandon him."

"I have Pluma, I have you, the same prophecy applies, right? Human, monster and a prince from the dark."

"Legend, and yes, but...

"If we seal the fountain, Berdly will be back with me, right?"

"Yes, but you don't know what could happen to him in the meantime." The human remained silent and continued to stare at the steadily shrinking goodness in front of him. "Look, how about we make a compromise? We don't look for Berdly, not for now at least. How about if we just look for Pilot then, hm? Then we could get Janice and Pluma to stay here for good, at least for as long as they have to while we make our way to the fountain, however long that will take just the two of us."

Kris made sure to speed up and actually eat up the entire rest of it. Once he swallowed the last bit, he agreed. "Yes, we could do that."

"See? Much better. Maybe we'll even find Berdly and that other fellow somewhere along the way." Something gave Kris the feeling that this was Ralsei's intention behind the compromise from the start.

* * *

A little more annoyed than he should have been at Kris' little outburst, Berdly walked back into the main hall of the infopage's tower, grumbling along. "This guy's got some nerve. 'Replacing Mom with Noelle'. What was that about?"

Once he was back at the tall jester's side, the infopage lowered himself with both hands demonstratively placed on both sides of his waist. "So, are you not following your friend?"

"Classmate."

"Sorry, classmate."

"No."

"All right. And yet you are still here, so I assume you have more questions."

Berdly sighed. "Yes. Is there a way out of here for me without 'sealing the fountain'?"

With his arms folded up, Manuel lowered himself down onto the ground and nodded. "Of course. Whoever is in possession of a dark fountain - that is, can wield its power - can open portals between the light world and the dark world. The 'king' or 'queen' of every realm, even though they don't have to be one in name. There is only no point in doing so except if it is to help lightners along, because darkners have no form in the light world. At least not a sentient one."

"And the one for this realm would be..."

The infopage opened his hand to gesture towards his right, where a flat image appeared in the air next to him. "The mayor of Canyon City. Don Gatore. Also the head of the Brawlers. I've seen you had your run-ins with those."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. "Yes." He stepped a bit to the side to stand at a ninety-degree-angle from the picture, as it was hard to discern otherwise. It depicted a crocodile, or an alligator. Very large, if the doorframe half his size he was standing next to was any indication. Two gatling guns hung off of his arms, one on each arm, attached through metal rings wound around his arms, with a rod extending itself along each arm to lead to one of the weapons' triggers in each hand.

Ammunition boxes hung off the back sides of the weapons. He was so massive and so strong, he just carried the weapons and their ammunition crates along where he went, and had a suit tailored to his size with the sleeves cut right off. "Hm. As long as that fountain's around, this guy can just keep opening new portals any time, right?"

"That is correct."

He sighed. "All right, we're doing it Kris' way. I don't want to walk around in my own home worrying about my sister falling through any closets all the time. Kris said we need a prince from the dark to get out of here. He went right for that black one. So what about the other one?"

The infopage smiled, raised a finger and guided it along his path as he began dancing in a circle around the hall, floating in an upward spiral. All along where his finger pointed, more projected screens appeared and showed what was also displayed on the screens on the walls. Pictures of what Berdly almost immediately recognized to be a more lifelike version of Pluma's Debbie- and Scott dolls.

"This 'prince' isn't a prince in the ordinary sense, but anyone you ask would see him as such. Strong, well-built, handsome, a well-paying occupation with high prestige that has him and his girlfriend Janice around each other at all times. He is well-known in every realm he visits and loved by everyone around. Strong, good-looking, popular, well-earning, he is the prince charming any woman would wish for."

"And yet, in the highest of times between him and Janice, when their life together was soon to reach another stage, practically overnight, something changed. Without telling anyone why, he came right to this city, bought enough beverages to get himself drunk beyond salvation, went through a blind spot in my cameras and then poof." The infopage made an exploding gesture with his hands. "Gone. Never to be seen again. And not long later, complete chaos ensued.

Berdly stopped him right there before he could gloss over that. "What chaos?"

"All sorts of random things." Manuel resumed his spiral but moved downwards ever so slowly, the screens above and every projected one he passed switching over to different locations depicting occurrences that took looking at them more than once to understand what was happening in each one.

"Swarms of doves just appearing out of nowhere and dropping onto high-traffic roads, street lights growing bicycles and beginning to dislodge themselves and dance in place, the animals in the zoo started floating around until they formed a large wheel that sped through the streets, a giant moose is on the loose in the upper part of the inner city near the path to the city hall and in the circus at the bottom level, an omnipotent clown appeared and turned the circus into his personal Colosseum where his contenders fight to the death. That is only to name a few things. Luckily the citizens got most of it under control. The moose is still out there though, as is the clown to name two things that haven't changed."

The footage was replaced with the pictures of the 'prince' again. "Now, as I was saying, his name is Pilot. Since you are looking for him, here is some information I think you might find useful." In front of Berdly appeared a display with three things. One of them was an address, two of them phone numbers.

"The last location he went to, their phone number and the phone number of his girlfriend. A stewardess by the name of Janice. She is at the precinct next door. Your friend should run into her any minute now." Berdly fumbled through all the pockets in this unfamiliar set of clothing he was wearing. He realized he indeed had his mobile phone on him, as well as a little notebook and a pen. The notebook and the pen fit in with his costume just fine.

Now this was just completely out of place. Then again, so was how Kris was dressed, as well as Jandsome, who had been eerily silent up until this point. He knew there was no point in wondering about that considering everything he knew about how the dark world worked, but the anachronisms were driving him up the wall. Nonetheless, all he could do was play along and note everything down.

While he was doing so, the silent jester came closer. "So what now?"

"Well? We're solving this..." Berdly began to smile, grabbed his hat by two ends with the tips of his fingers on both hands, and tipped it slightly. "...like private detectives." He ignored the annoyed reaction this had earned him from the jester and faced the infopage again. "You, I need more information." The bird above floated down until he was back on the ground from the looks of it.

"I need the name and location of every person Sco - uh - 'Pilot' talked to, before he vanished."

"Of course." With one swing of the red bird's hand, another display appeared right in front of Berdly, with all the names and addresses. And Along with that, a few things dropped on the ground. Once he had noted down everything, he picked up what was on the ground. They were maps. One of every floor in this canyon, with street names.

And all the addresses were in one and the same floor within the same canyon, one level above the one they were on right now. "Locations, names, and a map to make sense of it all. And more." Another display popped up a little closer than the others. It depicted a large black square, consisting of smaller, randomly arranged black squares. "Scan it with your phone."

Berdly raised an eyebrow, but he did as he was suggested. Immediately, his phone opened up a new window and began downloading some application that was installed within seconds and opened itself. It was a map application, except it worked for this city. This vintage toy city in another world in his room had cell phones and interactive maps. "I believe this is everything you asked for. Are you in need for anything else?"

"No, no." Berdly had trouble packing everything together, and figured he could just leave the maps other than the one they needed here.

"Excellent. If you need anything else, you always find me here! Don't forget to visit the gift shop!" With his arms folded up, the infopage floated upwards and spun another circle. When he was readying himself to dash away, he stopped and floated down again. "One more thing. A little heads-up if you will."

"What?"

"The stewardess is here for no reason other than to search for her runaway beloved. If she loses faith that she can find him here, she will leave again. If you wish to involve her in your investigation, and I recommend that you do, you had better contact her soon, before that ship sails - or in her case, that plane takes off." After that, he spun through the air one more time and flew off to the hallway that led them here and then vanished.

All the holographic displays vanished, all the screens turned off. The jester smiled and walked up to the maps Berdly had dropped. He gestured for the bird to pay him attention, picked up one of the folded-together maps, and slid it under his sleeve. And then another, and then another. The patches of his costume, even along the sleeves, were separated by thin, black segments, and each time one of the maps was slid past the one closest to his hand, it just vanished.

"How are you doing this?" The jester just shrugged.

They walked back outside. To their right within the hallway, the wall had slid to the side to make way for a windowed door with several shelves and stands filled with a variety of little sweets or mementos. When Berdly was already about to leave, Jandsome stopped him. "Hold on for a minute." The jester pointed at what Berdly presumed to be the gift shop Manuel mentioned. "I'm going to need you to buy something for me. I don't fit through there."

The door was indeed to small for him, and even if it wasn't, there was no way Jandsome could navigate through the narrow spaces that the stands and shelves left to walk through. He handed him a stack of money. Bills similar to the ones Kris had used to bribe those brawlers before. "I want you to buy me infobadges. As many as you can."

The perplexed ovid raised an eyebrow. "Okay...if you say so." He indulged his new friend, took the money and entered the shop. The moment he opened the door, a bell attached to it announced his entry.

Behind the counter within, Manuel was standing - for once on the ground - with a wide smile. "Hello there. What can I get you?"

Berdly kept it straight to the point, placed the money on the counter and asked what he was asked for. "Infobadges. As many as this can buy." After inspecting the money for a brief moment, the infopage ducked under the counter and dumped a few badges onto the open surface. Ten badges. "Thank you..."

They were ordinary red badges to attach to clothing, with a little needle hanging off a spring and latched into a frame to keep it from stinging the person wearing it. On their front, they had a blue lowercase 'i' on them and a picture of the infopage winking.

"Have a nice day! Do come by if you need anything else!"

At least now Berdly knew the catch he was suspecting around every corner. The infopage supplied everyone with information and made money selling overpriced mementos. And back outside, when he handed the badges to the jester who made them disappear the moment Berdly looked away for a second, he couldn't help but ask. "Why are those badges so expensive?"

While they crossed the door, the jester raised a finger to urge Berdly to pay attention. "Because there is much more to them, than to be mere decoration. You would not believe how useful they can be."

They marched along the road in quick pace. For the most part, because Berdly didn't want to run into Kris, but also because he didn't know how much time they had. The stewardess was looking for her pilot, but how long would she stay until she ran out of patience? Once he was sure they were at a safe enough distance from the precinct to not run into Kris should he come back out, he stopped. "We should call her."

Jandsome stopped. "I beg your pardon?"

"We should call the stewardess and tell her we're on the case. You know, to buy us some time to talk to her later."

"That can wait." The jester gave him a dismissive wave of the hand and moved on.

"No it can't. You heard him. She won't stay here, not for long. And it's not like she can count on Kris to get the job done, right?"

Jandsome spun around in place to face him again, put his hands together behind his back and tilted his head. "Is this you making an earnest estimation? Or is this your grudge talking?" Berdly began to feel a growing impatience as well, but for the time being, he humoured him.

They went back to the open area in the centre. There were brawlers in the distance, and the bird was shocked to notice one of them spotting him, but also relieved to notice they didn't pay further attention to him. A welcome change, which they used to move straight into the tall structure that connected all floors of the canyon to ascend it by one floor.

And once they had walked quite a bit through this part of town, Berdly stopped to make a point. "That's it." He pulled out his phone and dialed the number he had saved under Janice's name. "I'm calling her." It only had to ring a few times for someone to pick up, but before he could say anything, Jandsome glided straight past him along the smooth, tiled pavement, reached onto the device and pressed the hang-up button. "Hey!"

The jester shrugged. "She will still be here for a while, no need to rush." Berdly's eyes narrowed while he stared at the sly grin and the red hearts on this grown man's face.

He sighed and moved on. And soon enough, they found a sad sight for a first person to talk to. The address didn't refer to a house he lived in, but an alleyway in which he scavenged the trash bins for food. When Berdly greeted the rugged terrier, he had no idea why he was being paid a visit or who they were. And when asked, he had no real information on why Pilot had come here or where he was planning on going.

After questioning another person, a woman in a dress who was sitting at a porch in front of a dark red apartment building, with the same results, the bird decided it was time to give it another try. "Now, let's not take a bigger risk than we have to." He browsed through the contacts on his phone until he found Janice's name and tapped it twice.

And again, the jester snuck around him and when Berdly expected him to come the other way, glided past him while making a pirouette and yet again pressed the hang-up button right when someone other end had picked up. This time around, the bird was infuriated. "Will you stop? Just touching other people's phones, who does that?"

And again, the jester shrugged, those hearts on his eyes taking on an awkward twist when he raised his eyebrows in the same motion. "Why are you in such a hurry? She is not running away."

"She is! That's the point!"

"I do not think she is this quick to leave. We should give her more time."

"For what?"

"Consider the following. The friendly gentleman in the information tower said your friend was about to run into her any minute. If he is, getting to know someone like him, possibly even his 'prince' must be something that takes getting used to. Would it not overwhelm her if two more strange fellows like ourselves jumped right in to introduce ourselves?"

They didn't know that she had even met Kris at this point. Berdly wasn't sure why they were supposed to bank on that all of a sudden. He just stared at this increasingly nervous man in front of him. He needed a moment to put his thought into words. And with narrowed eyes, he spelled it out right in front of Jandsome. "Seems to me more like you're just trying to stall for it to never happen. Why do I get the feeling you don't really want to talk to that stewardess at all? "

The jester was slightly startled and almost jumped within his constant dancing motions. The angles at which he bent with every step were more exaggerated the further he went on. "Nonsense. I love to talk to everyone! I am merely being a considerate person as I do it."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. "Mhm. Considerate. Let's call it that." He stayed quiet until they were half-way there to talk to the next person. Berdly almost went back to bringing up how how he didn't believe a word Jandsome said, but he figured it was better to be sneaky about this. In slow moves, he slid out his phone and began scrolling through his contacts to get to Janice's number again.

He made sure not to make any sudden moves but keep an eye on Jandsome at the same time. And so far so good, it took a lot longer with him only scrolling a bit, sneaking a quick glance, scrolling a bit more within his pocket, pulling it out for a quick glance, until he found her, but eventually, he did. So he pressed the dial button and slowed down to gain a little distance.

Oh no, that was exactly the mistake he shouldn't have made. Jandsome turned around and saw the bird with his phone at his ear. He defensively raised one hand, a feather or two falling off just from the nervous movements . "Hey!" That didn't stop the jester from at least making one step towards him. "Stop it!" Berdly backed off a little more. "It's just one phone ca -"

While he was still talking, he finally heard the voice of a woman answer upon picking up, but before he knew what was happening, the voice of the confused woman faded out. "Hello?" When he turned around to take another look at his phone, he realized that it wasn't his phone any more, but one of the smaller, thinner plastic slates that covered the pavement and other horizontal surfaces in this whole city. "Hey! Why are you so..."

The jester, now with the corners of his mouth pointing downwards for once, spun around to face him and threw the phone right back at Berdly. He caught it, even though he didn't need it, now that he had already hung up on Janice a third time. "I don't see why you don't just agree and give it some time. Do you not trust me?"

"To be perfectly honest, no I don't."

Still playing innocent, the jester began walking circles around the bird. "I saved your life multiple times, what would give you any reason not to?"

Berdly just stood in the middle of it, motionlessly. "There's a lot about you that's suspect." Before he could go on, he was startled by the loud and obnoxious jingles of his phone ringing. She was calling him back, so as fast as he could, he stepped away from Jandsome, picked up, and nervously answered the call. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?" Multiple people were trying to say hello. He recognized a few of the voices talking. At least two. One of them was asking if he was okay.

"I'm fine, my friend here's just..." But be for he could go on, he stopped hearing anything and soon realized that Jandsome had pulled the exact same slate-swap trick a second time. "What is wrong with you?"

The jester was now catching up with Berdly's real phone and as usual, once it was too late and he had hung up, he gave it back to the angry bird. Jandsome had a more stern expression on his face by now. "Is urging for a little patience all it takes to earn your distrust?"

Even this back and forth didn't stop them from walking along their path. "That's just the tip of the iceberg." Berdly mumbled with most of his beak closed.

Both froze, in the middle of the walkway and out in public at that. For a moment, Jandsome broke from his weird stances and stood normally, then theatrically tilted his entire body to the side, jumped and began walking backwards in front of Berdly while the bird moved forward. "Really now, do tell. If there is so much, please, be my guest. Do not let the quantities intimidate you. Choose any point to start with. I am all ears."

"All right." Berdly demonstratively put his phone away and stood as straight as he could. And still didn't nearly reach up to the tall man towering above him, so he decided it was better to take a step back. "For a start, there's the night classes." Now, the jester took a step back, too.

"Be honest with me, you can convince Kris of nonsense like that, but I'm not that gullible. There is no such thing as night classes for piloting passenger flights, is there?" The jester said nothing.

"We're on this wild goose chase looking for a tall human man who can pilot passenger flights, when I have one with me right here right now. And we're looking for a human. And the only human we've ever met or even just seen this entire time save for Kris and Janice, is you. Now granted, you have blue skin, your face is all different and don't look an awful lot like a pilot." He pointed at him.

"But I'm onto you. Just on the way here, I've seen weirder things than makeup and a costume." The jester was sweating, but he had nothing to say. "So what's your deal, huh?" Now it was Berdly that was walking around Jandsome. He pulled out a magnifying glass that came with his costume and pointed it at the jester.

"Are you a friend of his giving him cover? Is that why all that weird stuff happened when Pilot vanished? Are you a brother of his? A colleague? Do Scotts from different houses know each other or something? Is that how this works?" The jester apparently considered slipping into a silly stance again, but figured otherwise.

"Now you better tell me something good, or I'm going to just leave right now. I'll call up Janice, I'll go back to the info tower, I'll tell them everything I know and see what that stewardess thinks about everything I've seen of you. In fact." He pulled his phone back out and aimed it at him to start recording him.

The moment he had it raised, stopped looking at him and tried looking through the camera, the jester had already pulled it out of his hand. He now stood close enough to scare Berdly into moving back. The bird was scared as to what he would do next. With all the weird stuff he did, he wasn't sure whether he could outrun this guy if he turned out to be some lunatic. But he could see how tense he was all over. He could see him inhale, exhale, and then relax.

He relaxed, and offered the terrified teenager his phone back. With an empty expression, he finally spoke up. "There is no need for this. Follow me." He simply turned around and began walking across the street and then in a different direction from where they were going.

He did, but he was still confused. "What? Where are we going?"

"There's something I really need right now." He left it at that. And while he led the way, Berdly noticed that something had changed drastically. All of the jester's quirky mannerisms were gone completely. The squeak in his voice had vanished, it was just the voice of a grown man who made conscious efforts to keep himself calm and collected. And he stopped sliding along the pavement, making little pirouettes or otherwise dancing along his path or walking in silly ways.

All Berdly saw in front of him now, was just a grown man in a silly costume with silly makeup on.

The silence was also cooling down the air between them. He figured he at least had better not try to call this woman any more. Jandsome would keep ripping his phone out of his hand and hang up whenever he tried to get a word in. But now that he knew that this Janice was willing to contact him back, he had to make use of this as long as it lasted. One of those several voices that tried to talk to him when she called back, sounded like Kris.

Another reminded him of Pluma, but that wasn't possible, he must have gotten the voices confused. He sent her a text message and waited. He tried wording the first message in a formal tone, describing Kris and asking if he was there. She replied in a similarly formal tone that she had indeed joined him to look for someone together, Pilot as Berdly figured. But also that he was not with her at the moment. Then, she sent him a message that sent a chill down his spine.

"Pluma says hello by the way." She was here? With Janice? In a city full of homicidal criminals?

He immediately sent a message back asking where they were. He received a vague answer, saying the boy in the green robe had taken them to some safe house the brawlers couldn't get to. And that he and Kris and seemed familiar witht hat place. Well at least she was hunkering down somewhere and not out in the streets. Hopefully long enough for him to find her and take her someplace safer. The boy in the green robe must have been the 'prince' Kris had gone to look for.

If they were out and about moving to safehouses, then that meant Kris somehow got him out of jail.

Jandsome led Berdly to a destination they had already planned on visiting, but originally intended to do so after questioning a few more of the people on Berdly's list. It was a bar called 'Wright's'. Its name glowed in bright white neon above the entrance and through a window that spanned an entire wall, you could see the dimly lit interior.

Berdly could see a few monsters sitting on the benches, drinking, talking, some having a good time together, others keeping to themselves. When Jandsome opened the noisy door, the stench of burnt tobacco immediately filled Berdly' nostrils. Behind the counter stood an obese triceratops in a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up and a black leather pauldron with steel spikes hanging off his shoulder. He leaned onto the counter and greeted the two with a grin.

"Hey there you two. What can I get ya?"

He was very obviously a brawler, from the appearance Berdly recognized down to his sizee, so he couldn't keep himself from smirking and commenting on that. "A brawler that isn't breaking the law? That's a first!"

And the barista was neither impressed nor overly offended, in fact, it made him laugh. "I'd do bootlegging if I could, but booze ain't illegal to sell."

With an unprecedented volume, the jester cleared his throat to draw the barista's attention and spoke with his normal voice. "I would like one bottle of your strongest whisky. And something not so strong for the little guy."

The bird hooked in. "I'm not even sure if I can drink at all here, what's the drinking age?"

"Five. New mayor's legislation, all drugs are now legal."

"Okay."

The dinosaur turned around and fetched two bottles. One was the whisky Jandsome asked for, one an extra mild wine, even with a sticker attached to denote it as such. "There ya go." Without further ado, he counted the money the older one of the two visitors put down and kept part of it while pushing the rest back to his customer. "No need, but uh, wait up." They were already about to leave, but stopped to listen to the barkeeper. "You sound familiar, you been here before?"

Jandsome just laughed. "I'm sorry, you must be confusing me. Have a nice evening!"

Once done, he led Berdly into more and more wound alleyways, further away from any curious eyes, until he stopped at a crossing between alleyways in the middle of four apartment complexes. Jandsome stretched out his finger and motioned a circle onto the ground in front of himself. "Allez 'hop!"

Then he took some steps back, ran towards the area he circled, jumped at it, and upon hitting the ground, was launched all the way up to top of one of the buildings. Once he had his bottles placed down, he waved at Berdly. "It's safe, just try it!" Try what? Berdly stopped and was confused. How did he jump up like that? "Imagine the floor down there like a trampoline, just jump!"

Jump? But there was nothing there? He walked a little closer to that area the jester had jumped up from to inspect it. Then, from one step to the next, his entire body shook and he screamed in fear, because he was being launched up into the sky! The cold wind rushing against his clothing showed him how fast he was moving up and it was only going to get worse from here. This was it, Berdly was dead! He was going to get crushed.

He fell into a death trap he...he was fine. With little to no impact, he landed on the rough surface of the flat rooftop the jester stood on. Still hyperventilating from the shock, he stayed on the floor for a while. Jandsome laughed and came closer. "You should have jumped. That makes it much easier to not lose orientation."

"You never told me you could...never do that again!"

"I'm sorry, I thought it was faster than the stairs. Come on. Let's sit down." With one bottle in each hand, the jester made his way to the edge of the building. A one-metre tall wall lined the entire outside of the roof, for safety so people didn't fall off. Jandsome leaned against that wall, and once Berdly had gotten up and caught up to him, so did he.

From here, you could see the lights of the 'moons' in the distance against the dark of the comparably flat skyline, with street lights quite a bit below bringing an abrupt end to the calming darkness if you followed it too far down. The jester put down the wine bottle and took a second sip from his own.

The bird sat down next to the jester. "So?"

Jandsome looked back at him. "What?"

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

From how the jester was staring at him, he could only guess that he really, really, really didn't want to have this conversation. He did eventually break the silence. "I will tell you exactly what you want to know. but you have to promise me one thing. No. Two things."

"Go on..."

"One, I will show you something and you will not panic. You won't scream, and you won't run away."

That already raised eyebrow of Berdly's was reaching heights he didn't think were possible. "Okay?

"Two, you won't talk to others about what I show you. I will tell you everything you want to know, but it stays between the two of us."

"Hm..." The bird's eyes narrowed and he kept staring at the now visibly nervous man. He didn't trust this, but he wanted these answers. "Deal." He reached out and shook the jester's hand.

"All right. Are you ready?" He was asking Berdly, but it sounded more like he was asking himself. The jester swallowed down his fears. "There goes." He ducked his head, so his face wasn't visible any more under the broader top of his cap, and grabbed two of the loosely hanging parts of his fool's cap and pulled it right off. When he looked back up, a lot had changed.

His skin wasn't blue, it had the normal tone of a western human. The hearts painted over his eyes were gone. And his facial features were all different. They had lost a little of their obscurity and fit a little better together.

"What? What?" It took Berdly a few seconds to recognize it, but those were the features of Pluma's Scott doll, albeit with a lot more detail because he was real. At least here. For a second he was at a loss for words. " That...you...I knew it!" With a force he had lost control of, he punched the still ridiculously dressed Pilot's arm.

"I knew it! Ever since you said you can fly that plane I smelled something fishy about you!" He grabbed the pilot turned jester by the collar and began to shout at him. "My sister was looking for all over for you! For hours! I was looking all over for you! For god's sake, I made Kris look all over for you! What is this? What has gotten into you? WHERE WERE YOU?"

Pilot didn't even fight back. "Ple-please. First promise!"

"First promise was about panicking! I'm not panicking! I'm just really mad at you!"

"I said no screaming."

Still holding Jandsome, no, Pilot by the collar, he sighed and then let go. "Fair enough. Explain yourself. How did you even do that?"

They both took a moment to relax again. "It's the cap. It changes my appearance. I can even change my voice if I want to." He very briefly put it back on and began speaking with that strange squeak he used to put on again, even if only for one sentence. "Allow me to introduce myself! I am Jandsome! Travelling jester!"

"Okay...but why? Why all this? Why run away? Was it Pluma? Did 'the lightners' 'banish' you into my closet?"

"Your closet?"

He had to think. When Kris first said this was his room, what did he say about the closet? "Uh...the cliffs. I mean the cliffs."

"No. That was all me."

Pilot started chugging away at that bottle, so much so that Berdly got closer and pulled it back. "Stop, you've barely started here. So why did you do all of this?"

Pilot puled his legs back with their knees up and wound his arms around them. He took a deep breath. "Reasons."

"What reasons?"

"Reasons."

"You promised me answers."

Pilot took another deep breath. "This isn't easy you know." The bird just stared at him. They both knew he wouldn't let go of this. Begrudgingly, and very slowly, the human-looking darkner began to fumble in one of the pockets of his costume. He never sped up on this. He was really taking this time. When he was done, he put down his legs again and held up a tiny box. 

Its outside was woven over in smooth silk with various shades of pink and red putting together a sown pattern of roses. "The reason I'm here, the reason I look like this." He opened it as slowly as he had taken it out. "Is because I am a coward." Embedded in a socket covered in cloth, on the inside, lay a golden ring, its upper side covered in tiny diamonds and one visibly bigger diamond set into its top.

Berdly sat there for a moment not knowing what to say. He was taken by surprise and blinked a few times, thinking about what he was seeing and what it meant. It was a wedding ring. "Janice. You were going to propose to her."

Pilot closed his eyes and nodded. It was silent enough up here that Berdly could hear the uneasy breaths of his friend. "I was - I was afraid. I was afraid what she would say. I didn't know if I could take this going the wrong way, I was afraid of taking that chance. So I chose to avoid it altogether." He turned the box around and began to stare at the ring.

"And now she's here." He was trembling. He was struggling to suppress his frown and grabbed his headgear. "This cap suits me. I really am a fool. She's putting herself in danger to chase a fool. I don't deserve her."

"So that's why you keep stopping my phone calls."

"If she loses hope in finding me here, she might leave. But if there are lightners helping her, she's only going to stay here for longer."

They both wound up silently staring at the floor for a while. Until Berdly came up with more questions. "So why all this 'jester' business? Why not just go somewhere else, maybe take a boat or something and sail off to where the angel won't see. Hell, that island was the perfect place. While we're at that jester stuff, did you learn all these tricks like the banana thing in that short a time?"

Pilot kept staring down. "I didn't. It's all the cap. As long as I can distract people in any possible way, it can do basically anything."

The student grinned. "That's one powerful cap. Do they sell those in the gift shop, too?"

Pilot shook his head. "No. It was given to me by a stranger who cheered me up when I came here."

* * *

I was much more shaken up than I am now. I'm not sure if I can remember any given moment since I came here when I wasn't either sobbing, fighting against the tears with all I had, or outright crying my eyes out. I couldn't bear the fear, and I couldn't bear the shame of myself running away, and yet I kept making it worse, because it was more comfortable than facing her again. I avoided contact with as many as I could, I only greeted a few people back.

I didn't know what to do, or where to go. So I just did what you could expect me to do. This. Drink away my sorrows. Or at least try to. I went to the same place we just visited, and then I climbed the stairs to get to this very roof. I was planning on staying here for a long time. I had food and water ready. I was expecting to just stay in this corner, where the infopage can't see me. But something unexpected happened. I met someone. A little figure jumped along all the rooftops.

I must have been such a pathetic sight to behold. A grown man, reclined in a corner, crying while drinking as if there is no tomorrow. And yet, for some reason, this roof wasn't an exception to the insanely high jumps this little fellow was capable of. In fact, upon seeing me, he stopped, in the middle of the air as if he could fly, folded his arms together and slowly floated down here.

"BOO HOO HOO. WHAT MUST MY EYES BESET THEMSELVES UPON? WHY THE LONG FACE?" He had a ragged voice that you could hear echoing all around whenever he spoke, and it was so loud, for the first few seconds, I felt like my head was going to explode. "THIS PLACE IS NOT NEARLY AS FUN AS I HEARD, BUT YOU SEEM THE FURTHEST FROM ANY AMUSEMENT WORTH MENTIONING!"

I could barely make out what he looked like. My sight was a little blurry, but it got better when I put the bottle away and gave him a closer look. It was a very small person. Smaller than even you or all the citizens here. He was wearing a jester's outfit, just like mine, down to the colours, and his face had the same royal blue colour to it that I have when I put on this cap. Although I must admit, his collar was a little more extravagant than mine.

His teeth were sharp, some hung out and they had the same bright yellow collar as my and his collar do. His eyes were painted over with black stars and a barely visible, yellow glow came out of them. His tail, once swung with its tail upwards, formed a visible 'J'.

And a fool's cap, he was wearing a fool's cap in the middle of a modern city. I asked him to leave me alone, but he just came hopping closer. "IS THAT HOW YOU GREET A NEW VISITOR? I MUST SAY. TOUGH CROWD. AND THIS VIEW!" He jumped onto the ledge I'm leaning against. "COULD DO WITH MORE COLOURS, BUT AT LEAST THERE IS A PLENTITUDE TO SEE FOR SUCH A SMALL PLACE. NOW YOU."

He jumped back to the ground. "WHAT DRIVES ONE SO FAR FROM HOME, ALL ALONE WHERE NO EYES CAN SEE."

I was still crying, even right in front of him. I didn't care at this point. I was a stuttering mess and tried to tell him that I couldn't deal with what I was facing.

"NOW ONE THING AFTER THE OTHER. TELL ME WHERE..." I screamed at him to leave me alone, I begged him. "YOU ARE JUST BECOMING ALL THE MORE INTERESTING. NOW." He sped right towards me, ripped my bottle out of my hand and threw it away. It shattered and all its remaining contents went to waste. "YOUR SORROWS WON'T GO AWAY IF YOU POISON YOUR BODY AND YOUR MIND. LET US DROWN THEM IN ENJOYMENT INSTEAD!"

He bounced from one side of mine to the other, and I followed him with my eyes. When I stopped doing so, I noticed that right in the corner of my eye an entire full-sized carousel in deep blue was built up and ready right here on this roof. In one jump, this tiny fellow got onto one of the horses and it began to move. They all began to move. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? QUICK QUICK UP YOU GO!"

He was successful in cheering me up in so far that he distracted me, so I got up and followed him. I did as I was told. I got up on the carousel and began riding a creature with a strange head. I knew it was childish, but then again, what did it matter. This wasn't a day to be proud of to begin with. "VERY GOOD. NOW HOW ABOUT THIS?"

Now that I was on the carousel, he jumped right off of it and began jumping up and down. Pieces of the roof itself began to stand up all around him and take on forms with arms and legs, and dance in circles around him. And all manner of playing card symbols appeared out of nowhere to join them in this dance. And once circle upon circle was wound around each other with him at the centre, he jumped right back onto the carousel.

I have to admit, he did so little and yet it worked so well, I had already calmed down by this point. "WHAT? WE HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN AND YOUR SPIRITS ARE ALREADY LIFTED! I WILL HAVE YOU SNEERING IN YOUR SLEEVES IN NO TIME AT THIS RATE. NOW COME ON, LET US BE OFF." I was still hesitant. I tried to tell him I wasn't sure if I was in any condition to accompany him in whatever endeavour he was out for.

"RUBBISH IF I EVER HEARD ANY. ONE IS ALWAYS IN A CONDITION TO BRING CHAOS AND MISCHIEF, ESPECIALLY TO A PLACE WITH SUCH A HUGE AUDIENCE!" I told him I couldn't be seen like this. But all he did was swing his arm around and as if covered by some blanket, he vanished. Mere moments later so did I in the same way. "AND NOW, YOU WON'T BE SEEN AT ALL."

And soon, we were on our way to the street. I was as terrified as you were when I stepped on a 'bouncy' surface for the first time and was launched in one move down to the walkway."PERHAPS SEEING ONE ANOTHER MAY BE OF HELP." When I got up, I saw my arms again and in front of me, he stood with his gloved hand raised.

There were a few passerbys, they didn't react to our sudden appearance in the slightest. Apparently, we were only visible to each other. The small man jumped all around the street, and tapped each street light once with a hand on each leap. Each one he did, began to quake and stir left and right. Through their surface, first the wheels, then the entire rest of four entire bicycles began to come out, two further up, two further below like arms and legs.

And leveraging themselves on those bicycles, they just pulled themselves out of the ground and began making random movements without straying too far from where they had been. The people that were walking close enough to see the spectacle were first startled, then shocked, and the little devil just curled together, bursting into hysterical laughter.

And that was only the very beginning. He led me all around the city. We caused mayhem wherever we went. All those things the infopage described happening after I vanished, that was us. We saw one person get startled at a passing deer-like citizen, so we thought maybe confronting them with a giant moose wouldn't be out of place. We saw a road with high traffic and decided to summon swaths of birds out of nowhere at odd times.

He created a gravity field that pulled all the animals in the zoo together and had them roll through the streets. We rearranged the layout of an entire block just to confuse everyone who had any business going there. We visited the coast and found a fisherboat and made the fish and the fishers swap places. The things he was capable of, it was ridiculous. Of course, some jokes were outright mean, but still, I couldn't help but laugh at them.

If I were to claim that I tried to hold him back and moralized about not treating other people like that, I would lie. I enjoyed our time together. I laughed at a lot of his pranks. But, as I suspected, it wasn't something that lasted forever.

After a whole slew of bringing chaos to the city, we returned to this roof to look upon some of it. "NOW THEN. IT SEEMS OUR TASK IS FINISHED AND THAT FROWN OF YOURS HAS TURNED UP. NOW TELL ME, I WAS TOLD THERE WAS FUN TO BE HAD HERE. TELL ME, WHERE MIGHT I FIND SOME TRUE ENJOYMENT WITH A CHALLENGE."

I wasn't really familiar with the kind of scene that would include a jester, so I figured he was a clown of sorts and told him about the circus at the bottom of the inner city. "THEN I WILL JOIN THIS CIRCUS. IF THEY HAVEN'T REALIZED IT, I WILL BRING IT TO IT'S FULL POTENTIAL." I asked him if he really just could take over the circus so easily, so he just came closer to me and went on. "I CAN DO ANYTHING AND NOW..."

Then he slowly pulled off his fool's cap and revealed a wide, rounded haircut of bright-red or orange curled hair on his head. "...NOW, SO CAN YOU." He gave me his cap. The moment I held it in my hands with no idea what to say or what this meant, he bounced away, shouting: "MISCHIEF, MISCHIEF, CHAOS, CHAOS!" and burst out in laughter, seconds before he just disappeared. I can only figure that the clown in the circus is him, and he really did follow up on my suggestion.

* * *

"This entire costume just sort of appeared on me when I put on the cap for the first time. This entire spiel, the costume, the cap, the jokes, it may not have solved my problems, but it helps me cope. So please, don't take this away from me."

Once he was done telling his story, they both stared at the ground in silence. But even when they didn't want it to, the world kept going. The wind kept dragging on Berdly's feathers and slightly pulling on the loose silk patches on Pilot's costume. They both spent some time thinking about what to say, or where to go from here. Then again, while they were at telling each other secrets, he might as well return Pilot's gesture. "I texted her."

"What?"

"I exchanged messages with Janice. Kris and his prince friend are already with her. Just like my sister. You think she's going to stay if there are 'lightners' helping her? There already are. She isn't going anywhere now." While the bird was getting up, the pilot just looked back down. "So what are we going to do about all this?" Pilot still wouldn't move. "She's not leaving now."

He walked up to him to try to give him a little push by he shoulder. "Come on. She's not going away until she finds you, and neither is my sister. They're both dead set on finding you. The least we can do is keep an eye on them ourselves."

His friend retreated back behind his knees. "I can't face Janice. Not like this."

"Then don't. Use this cap! Disguise yourself, make your voice different, doesn't matter, but we can't keep them out of harm's way if we're not there to do it. Besides, there's more solutions than one. Come on, get up!" He tried pulling him up by the hand, but it was no use. He was almost as sad a sight as those homeless monsters, but still bigger and stronger. "You know what, fine. Wallow in your own misery, see if I care! I have to find my sister!"

"Wait..." Storming off halfway to the outside staircase was what it took for Pilot to get back up and follow him. Now, with his cap back on his head, but both bottles still in hand, he caught up to the bird. "...I'm sorry." Now, together, they went down the stairs like normal people. "Do you think she would even accept me after all this?"

"No way to find out until you try. Besides. You ran away and yet she chased you all the way here from my sister's room. If that doesn't say something, then what does?"

"What is it with your sister anyway?"

"You're her doll, Sco- Pilot."

"Her doll?"

The bird sighed. "Ugh, look, it took me a while to get how this dark world stuff works, okay? If I told you something, would you make the same two promises as before?"

"I promise."

"Okay. All this business with the brawlers is my fault. You said 'the lightners' banished the citizens to these canyons? It's like Kris said. The canyons are my toy boxes. I recognize most of the brawlers and a lot of the citizens here. I am 'the lightners'. If I could get back home, you know, to the real wo - the light world, I could make all the brawlers disappear."

"You mean like a mass deportation."

"Yep, imagine them all just gone. No selling dust, no pointing guns at people. Imagine this whole place without the crime." Corner after corner, they retreaded their path back to the bar and sat down on an empty bench, hidden in plain sight to all the monsters and the patient barkeeper.

"But how? How is that even possible?"

"You're all just inanimate objects, Pi...Jandsome."

"Considering the feats I heard that lightners accomplished, we must all indeed seem like mere objects to you."

"No. I'm being literal here. You all exist in the light world, as objects. All those people, all those buildings, those are all my building block toys. They were 'banished' here because I met - because I was getting too old and put them all in a box, okay? I banished them all here."

"And me?"

"Dolls. Both you and Debbie. You're a plastic doll that came with a toy plane that she plays house with. Because where we're from, that's all you are. You're a toy. You're a child's plaything. My sister is looking for you, because she's 'your' lightner the same way I'm that of all the people here. Because of you, she's in as much danger as Janice is now. We all jumped head first into this world to find a plastic toy."

"Sounds like you could do with a drink as well." Pilot handed him the mild wine bottle, and Berdly did open it up to take a tiny sip from it before giving it back.

Now that they had both calmed down, the bird finally took that phone of his back out and gave Pilot a serious look. "Now, I promise, I won't tell her anything. If I call her, will you please let me make that call?" The grown man leaned back with his arms folded up. At last, he was going to make that call. He dialed the number, and after a few times, Janice did pick up the phone to say hello. "Hello? It's me again." He tried to laugh. "We had some trouble to sort out, but now I can talk. My name's Berdly."

The mature woman on the other end of the phone didn't seem the least bit startled or surprised. "I know. Pluma here told me all about you."

He could already hear her come closer. and not long after that, it seemed Janice handed the phone to his sister "Is it Berdo?" What a relief, she was fine. "Berdo? Where are you?"

He was a bit cross with her. "Where am I? Where are you? Why are you here?"

"We're looking for Scott."

"I know you're looking for Scott, but how - " He covered his face with one hand. "It doesn't matter, where are you? Where can I find you?"

"We're in a house in some big dark place with lots of pointy houses. Kris and the goat brought us here."

"Yes, yes, where is he? Is Kris with you?"

"No, him and the goat went to that big castle." Great, now there was a big castle all of a sudden. Where was there supposed to be a big castle?

He was getting frustrated. Getting any information out of her was impossible. "Look, just...are there any scary looking people outside? People with spiky clothes or big teeth?"

"There's no-one else anywhere." What was that supposed to mean?

He sighed. "Give me Debbie, will you?" And apparently she did. He apologized for all the inconvenience and gladly, Janice told him that it was all right. "So where exactly are you guys? Describe the place?"

"It's a town behind a heavy door. But it's quiet and I haven't seen anyone else here. I think we're all alone here."

"So no brawlers nearby?"

"Your friend's friend said they can't get here. They're just coming back from that door by the way." Perfect. So it really was some kind of safehouse. Effectively at least. He took a deep, calming breath. At last, he could relax. At least for a bit.

For a moment, he could hear all of them talking, then the phone was handed to someone else who didn't say a word. For quite some time. So Berdly decided to act on a hunch. "Kris?"

"Yes?" Yes, it was him.

"Where are you?"

"Behind a door."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. But where is that door?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Oh. Berdly began to see where Kris was coming from. He had to think. If they wanted to tag along with them, they needed a reason. Kris wanted to join up with him as little as he wanted to with Kris. He needed a pitch. He stared at Pilot for a moment, but he just shook his head and shrugged. "You're...you're looking for Pilot, right? I mean why else would Janice be with you?"

"Yes? So?" Kris didn't sound the least bit interested.

"Well me and Jandsome got our hands on a hot tip on where he could be." Pilot wasn't saying anything, but he was making wide and erratic gestures begging for Berdly not to do what he thought he was going to do. "He's still in this city. Our source doesn't want to talk to us if we reveal too much, but this might be it. We might be onto where he's gone."

More chattering was heard in the distance. Apparently, those four people were arguing over this, but eventually, Kris spoke to him again. "Brawlers spotted us, so Ralsei moved the door somewhere else. I don't know where. It's a big black double door with a Delta Rune on it. And a golden frame. Good bye."

"Wait-wait-wait-wait." It was too late. Kris had just hung up on him. "Oh no, how are we going to find them now?" Pilot picked out one of those badges from the infopage and pointed at it. "What about it?" Without further ado, he got up, both of them did, went outside, walked around a corner, waited until they were sure nobody was in range to see or listen, and placed it on the floor.

Pilot kneeled down, 'pressed' it and took a step back. It began to shine and above it, all of a sudden, a smaller version of the infopage appeared right in front of them. "Hello." It greeted them with a certain professional distance the 'real' one in the tower hadn't shown. "I am the infopage. Do you have any questions I can help you with?"

He started to understand. These things really were a lot more useful than he expected. "Yes, we do. Can you tell me where we find a big black double door with a Delta Rune on it and with a golden frame?"

The infopage nodded, and next to him, a display appeared with an address on it. As fast as he could, the bird picked out his pen and notebook and noted down the address. Then he waved at the two of them. "Thank you for using the official infoBadge - trademark - and have a nice day." With that, he just vanished. And slowly dispersing into static, so did the badge.

"Where exactly are you going with this?"

"I have a plan." Berdly put away his notebook. He now knew where to go and what to do. "We string them along. Say we have a lead on where you are. This guy you got that cap from, what's he called, anyway?"

"Jevil. His name is Jevil."

"Jevil. We go to the circus, see if Jevil is there. Circus is at the bottom of the inner city, right? And the city hall is also in the inner city. So it's a lot closer to the city hall where we're now. From there, it's not as far any more. We string them along for as long as we have to, seal that fountain together, you stop hiding, I get home and give you back to Pluma, and then everyone's happy."

"That sounds like something, but..." Pilot slowed down. "...it still means I have to face Janice."

The younger-looking one just looked back at him with growing impatience. "You'll have to face her sooner or later either way. All this is doing is giving you more time."

The jester pulled himself together. "Yes. Time. All I need is a little more time."


	7. On the Sunny side of the street

Love in Plastic

Chapter 07

On the sunny side of the street

* * *

It was a pity it had to end when it did. Susie was a bit bummed out when Noelle reminded her of how much time they had spent playing card games. It had really passed in a flash. When she got off her ass and made sure she had her stuff with her, especially her new set of playing cards, she couldn't help but chuckle thinking about it. She was having fun. Actually having fun. Every party was like another little thing to discover with Kris, Lancer and Ralsei.

She was so suckered in by this, she barely felt like leaving school at this point. The echo of her own steps in the hall was the only thing she could hear on her way out. It was strange that at this time in the evening, the building was even still open. Even afternoon classes ought to have been over for the most part, and in all the front parts of school, at least in the parts that weren't behind locked doors.

And yet the doors were still left open to look through. Nobody coming her way, or seeing her.

No-one would spot her. And so no-one would suspect that she was losing her edge or had done done something they would get mad about, when she left the building with a smile. Kris and Ralsei didn't suspect that Susie was up to no good when they were travelling together. Then again, most of the time, that was because they knew she was. They knew she was, and they kept trying to befriend her anyway. One of the many things that were weird about those two.

When she had taken a few steps outside, she took in the fresh breeze. The weather was cooling. But it took a little more than a little cold air to bother a tough dragon like herself. When she thought about it that way, it made sense that those two wimps humoured her. They were two sensitive little guys who needed someone tough to protect them.

She was only really aware of how much time had passed, when she noticed the sun being about to set. It was already casting shadows that covered the walkways on one side of each street. On other days, she would have stuck to those. On a day like today, she felt like avoiding the shadows. And the warm sunlight on her skin was something to enjoy. Sure, it was all a bit cold, but a lot warmer than wandering through the dark. She preferred to stay in this part of town for a while.

She took a turn that deviated strongly from her path home, up the road and to the little park, past the flower shop. As on many other days, the benches here were empty. It was quiet, for the most part. Still with her hands in her jacket pockets, she sat down. Even all the way here, she was still smiling. Nobody could hurt her after all, she felt invincible. The rustling of the leaves in the wind had a much higher pitch than that of the blocky leaves in the red forest.

Where she would make plans with Lancer to stop Kris and Ralsei from moving closer to the castle. She enjoyed every bit of that day. Whether she was only half-heartedly playing along with Kris and Ralsei's little 'hero' game, plotting against them and confronting them with each idea, even when she was fighting alongside them. Even the more serious parts and the fierce battles towards the end.

She wasn't sure whether she knew anyone whom she trusted to have her back other than those two after that day. In fact, she wasn't sure whether she could remember this feeling of having someone who had your back, and that you would repay in kind - at all. In all her life for that matter. It felt new to her.

The next gust of wind that rushed along between the trees just felt a little more cold and she pulled the front ends of her coat a little closer together. Perhaps it was a little late in the year to enjoy nature. And the shadows were growing a little taller. If she wanted to enjoy the last bits of sun, she couldn't spend ages lounging about here. She got up, but soon found herself slowing down when reaching the end of the trees and slipping between them instead of walking past them.

Towards the 'Flower King'. She knew who it belonged to. She never really interacted with Kris' old man, but at what little occasions there were at school, she could tell from what he looked like and who he talked to, that this was him. She couldn't just straight up march home like that. That wasn't like her. She never went through a day without doing at least something cool.

Like spraying random black lines onto a wall, when possible doing this over whatever 'art piece' someone else had drawn, painted or sprayed onto it. That or she broke or stole something. It didn't have to be something big, but doing it at all was sorta obligatory at this point.

Once she was sure Mr. Dreemurr wasn't anywhere in her line of sight, she ducked, waited for a moment when she was sure to know there was no-one watching, whether here, or on the other side of the road, and then snuck closer to that truck. There had to be something she could steal in there. But there wasn't. In the front of the tray was a closed bag of manure, and in the back, a watering can way too big for her to just bag and be off with, and a big bunch of now-wilted roses.

She shoved the contents that she could get to without climbing onto the truck to the side. There was something next to the roses. A little bag, and inside it, the bloom of a single rose. The only one that wasn't brown and brittle. More and more concerned about possible onlookers showing up, she shrugged off the rest of the search and decided to call it on that. The bloom of a rose had to do for her daily spoils.

She pulled it out of there, stuffed it in her pocket and vanished between the trees again, to circle back to where the benches were and stroll along the road as if nothing had happened.

Now she really couldn't hang out here any more. The way home was a bit longer. It was a little further away from school than its immediate vicinity, she wasn't as lucky as people like Kris or Kid. Most students had a school-season ticket they could use to come here by bus. She didn't, she went here by foot.

And as soon as she was past the last buildings, where the police had blocked off entry for several hours just yesterday, she made sure today's trophy was safely stashed away in her jacket pocket before she began to run. She ran through the trampled grass on the side of the roadway over to her home, like she did twice a day. Halfway at least. Then she stopped. The sun was still setting. You could already see the moon, but there was still a bit of sunlight left.

She decided to walk the rest of the way home. Nothing at home was running away. On the other hand, it was getting pretty cold, so she settled with marching home. And once past the field of fading grass, off to the left-hand side, away from the single family homes right on the street and further towards the tall apartment buildings, all of which towered over the surrounding shorter houses in tones of grey.

Upstairs, she let herself into the barely lit apartment. In the main room, opposite from the table clearly too big for only the two of them, her mother, so wide in stature that it was her that engulfed the comfy chair she sat on and not the other way around, was watching some staged reality tv program about culinary wonders that both she and Susie knew she would never try to recreate.

Susie knew better than to even look at the screen. It would only make her mouth water and turn her away even more from the still warm but anything but freshly cooked and barely edible, slimy stew that stood on the table, made by throwing random ingredients together. The only one of which she could still discern, were the half-torn peas. Susie sat down on the table to try eating as much of this stuff as she was capable of. Not like there was anything to eat at school.

And she barely had enough money to spend on cans to spray walls and maybe something to eat twice a week. Any additional disposable money she had, she lifted from other students when the teachers weren't looking. Kris was no exception here. If she didn't eat this, she might have to lift some money from Kris later. She forced herself to eat it. It didn't taste very well, but she was her mother and she was trying.

Wordless grunts made for greetings and while Susie ate, her mother asked her about school and was happy - or at least appeased - when she heard that Susie went to school in time for class. For once. And she was also happy to hear that while she didn't spend time with her friend from school, she did spend the afternoon playing card games with someone else. Susie was usually silent and avoided talking about what she did after school to avoid predictable fights.

Once she was done, it was time to hop in the shower. She took off her clothes, and let the water run. She only had three sets of trousers, and all of them were torn around the knees. Sometimes, people would look at her funny, because they thought they were those really, really expensive ones that came purposefully torn to be fashionable.

At last she had a few minutes with walls in all directions, with the only entrance locked from the inside. No-one to look at her, no-one to see her. No-one she had to worry about smelling weakness.

A few minutes all to her own, to think. Only a few minutes but it was something. Time to think about her day, or what of it mattered at least. She didn't find the dark world again. And Kris didn't seem that confident in finding it either. But he remembered Lancer, and Ralsei. Maybe it was just something that rarely happened. Before she could delve into it much further, she figured she was still on her own when in bed.

Once dried off, she left the bathroom without combing or even drying her hair and carried her clothes to her room. And inside, she closed the door. The not particularly bright lamp's yellow light gave her room overall an orange-ish tone. She had to be careful when navigating to the other side so she didn't step on one of the many random things that lay strewn across her room before she tossed most of her clothes in the closet, the doors to which were always open.

After that, she leaped onto her bed and pulled up the blanket to cover herself. She didn't feel sleepy, but she didn't regret going to bed earlier yesterday and wanted to repeat it. She just had to try.

Maybe if she lay in bed long enough, she would fall asleep.

* * *

Tap, tap, tap, tap. In the silence of Ralsei's kingdom, all they could hear for quite a while, was a human impatiently tapping his foot. Janice was in contact with Berdly via phone and apparently, they were on their way here. And thanks to Berdly's claim of having a lead on Pilot, Ralsei was able to get Kris to begrudgingly agree to wait here for him, so they could help Berdly and Jandsome with pursuing this ominous 'lead' they had. The prince, for one, was looking forward to it.

Kris was an enigma to him. Even now, that he was finally here with him, he wasn't the most talkative person. He never really told him anything about himself. And there was so much Ralsei wanted to know. What was his favourite colour? What kinds of foods did he like? What did he spend his days doing?

There was so much to find out, he was worried if he ever started outright asking him, he would get carried away, come across as though he was interrogating him and scare him off. Even if Kris didn't call Berdly a friend, he was a classmate and from the impressions Ralsei got, they knew each other for a long time. Hopefully, he knew all kinds of things about him.

The only thing other than tapping away that Kris did, was to occasionally open his inventory to check whether they had everything. They had put down most of what he had brought along and replaced it all with cakes. His bag was full of Ralsei's cakes. Then, it was finally time. The only adult among them came out of the little house, wrapped in her coat as usual and nodded. Ralsei's signal that Berdly and the jester were standing in front of the door.

In motions that sent the ground trembling, the door opened and led outside, straight to a little street. The door was set up in a tall concrete wall. At least a wall that had a colour that made one expect it to be concrete. And there they were. When the two groups met, the doors closed behind them as soon as Janice and Pluma had followed them outside. Kris and Berdly respectively stepped forward to face each other. "Hey."

With Berdly being the only one talking, apparently. "Are you going to be normal now?" Once he was sure, the human wasn't going to answer, he went straight for Pluma. He knelt down and grabbed her by the jacket. "What ARE you doing here?"

The little bird girl wasn't the least bit worried about anything that happened around here. "We're looking for Scott."

"I get that, but why didn't you stay in there?"

He was snapped at from the side by the blonde woman that stood next to him. "I am not hiding away while you spend your time doing who knows what." She picked up Berdly's sister. "And I am not leaving her alone in there either."

"We're not leaving until we find Scott!"

Upon hearing the more confident girl and seeing her stretch her tongue out at him, Berdly tried to suppress his rage and yet shot Jandsome a glare that everyone could see anyway. "Right. We're just going to have to deal with that."

To loosen up the mood, the prince came closer to shake Berdly's hand. And everything about the black boss monster raised his eyebrows. "Hello! You must be Berdly. I'm Ralsei!" But his demeanour was a lot less peculiar than that of Kris, which was a relief. One of his worries up to that point, was the addition of this 'prince' meaning they would walk around with two Krisses in all but name.

"I'm looking forward to travelling together with you. So where does this lead take us? Where do you need us to go?"

A voice cut into their conversation. A voice that they remembered, but not very fondly. "You guys ain't goin' nowhere." One by one, from around various corners, shady characters began to come around. Coats and trilbies messily wrapped over bodies that weren't meant to wear them. Each one with some firearm. One of them, the one that spoke up to give them all the cue, was the frilled dragon that Kris had paid off. "We ain't missin' out on this payout."

At once, the six that had just met huddled together, covering the human woman and the little bird she held. Berdly pointed right at him. "You guys already were paid off. What? You switching careers to begging?"

The lizard, the only one of them not with his weapon out, wasn't impressed. "Ain't that easy. That bit was peanuts even then. And you ain't on our turf no more. One guy said he spotted a second bounty." He nodded towards one of his colleagues. It was the raptor that attacked Kris and the others when they entered the door to Ralsei's kingdom for the first time. "Blue guy and the boy in green are gonna make us a lotta money. Enough to share. All we needed was a tip on where they'd be."

He nodded in the other direction. Towards the fat triceratops that served as an unseemly barkeeper where Berdly made his phone call.

Berdly faced him with a grin. "What's this, lardy? Snitching on your customers?" The dinosaur just shrugged it right off. He didn't appear the least bit remorseful.

"It ain't snitching unless you're talking to the cops." They were six, and they were coming closer. Their enemies stayed at a safe distance. They had to come up with something. "So how we gonna do this? You finna be nice and hand 'em over or what?"

The prince tried to step in. "There must be a less violent way to settle this."

He was only met with questioning looks. "Like what? A dance-off in the moonlight?" Everyone laughed at that. "Just to make that clear: We are NOT doing a dance-off."

"Jandsome..." Berdly began mumbling in the jester's direction, and as quiet as he could without being unintelligible.

"Yes?"

"You said you can do basically anything, right?"

"I suppose?"

"A smokescreen, possibly? And maybe bananas?"

"The former, yes, but I don't think I can do the banana swap if I can't see them."

"What about a flare? Shoot in the air and they're all distracted."

"Too many, they'd just shoot us down."

"Same goes for the smokescreen, they'd just fire blind shots and hit us anyway."

"You know." The prince chimed in on their little conversation. "Getting hit once or twice is not a problem. I can heal you back up."

Berdly raised an eyebrow. "You can heal us, just like that?"

"Yes."

His eyes narrowed and he faced Kris. "Dedicated healers, jesters, you're wearing armor, we're fighting bad guys, what's next, you use your shield and start tanking for us...Is this some kind of role playing game?"

"Not any more." The prince continued to talk on Kris' behalf. Not like his difficult classmate was talking to begin with. "For all that matters, we could all die here."

To his surprise, this was the thing that had Kris step closer and begin to point at everyone one by one to give orders. "All right, here's what we do. Berdly, you say something annoying." What was with his sudden change in attitude?

"Since when do you call the shots here?" The bird pouted as much as his sister did and folded up his arms.

"Please." Ralsei pushed himself between them and pleaded: "Not now. I don't know what it is that's bugging both of you, but please don't do this now."

This more reasonable friend of Kris' got Berdly to quickly realize why his classmate changed from not talking to giving orders. They were surrounded. They had to put their differences aside, at least for now. He sighed. "Okay. Go ahead."

And so he did. "Berdly. You say something annoying to one of them. Also, can you shoot one or two of them without seeing them? Best is that one over there." He pointed at the fat triceratops who had one of the corners the brawlers had come out of all to himself. He grabbed into his bag and pulled out a little mushed together piece of cake. "Jandsome, you do the smokescreen thing and stay with those two." He pointed at Janice and Pluma and then back at the triceratops.

"You three make a little circle along the wall so Berdly has a clear shot and run right that way and then around the corner. If he's still standing when you're there, you can still do the banana swap. Ralsei, you come with me. And Berdly." Still unhappy with seeing the same guy he blamed on being stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere take charge, he listened. "Run straight at him, shoot him as often as you have to and then follow the others. Don't worry about us."

He was putting it in an awkward way, but Berdly got what he meant. "I can try." The fat dinosaur gave him a lot of room for error. Maybe if he was lucky enough, he could continue with the raptor next to him, too. And he already had an idea what to say. He started speaking loud enough for the brawlers around them to hear him. "Hey flappyears!"

The lizard who, whether or not purposefully, had long been presenting his frills, began to wrinkle up. "Yes, you! What's your problem the citizens anyway?"

"'They don't belong here."

"Really? What's with those clothes you're wearing then?"

The lizard snuck a quick glance at everyone else's clothes and his own. They fit into the era this whole city was emulating, but something was always off. The spiky shoulderpads or belts, the ammunition belts practically protruding out of their jackets, it all looked like they were people dressed as bikers who flimsily tossed vintage attire on top of it and called it a day. "What about 'em?"

"Look at them. All those bumps and tears. It all somehow doesn't fit, does it? The clothes look kind of out of place on you." The lizard began to bear his teeth. "Or maybe it's not the clothes. The clothes fit in here perfectly. The clothes look like they belong here. The only thing that has no business being here, is you!"

He was more than just bearing his teeth now. The lizard reached for his holster and drew his weapon. The moment he did this, Kris summoned his shield, stepped in the way of where he expected him to shoot and shouted at the jester: "Now!" Two loud bangs followed, one being a gunshot, one the smoke bomb that immediately covered everything. He felt the pain from blocking that bullet and slammed the cake piece right into his face.

The smoke burned in all of their eyes and only spurred them on to hurry with going forward all the more. Kris summoned his sword and charged right into the smoke, towards where that reptile stood with Ralsei right behind him. More gunshots were to be heard all around. He surged straight to his target with his sword raised and when he arrived, swung down with no mercy, cutting right through the jacket and burying it in the lizard.

He cut half of one of his frills right off his head and the now slightly less frilled dragon screamed with pain while bleeding from every part the human struck. Before the reptile had too much time to react, Kris raised a leg, kicked him and used the force of his leg to help pull his sword back out and then strike him right again. This time he dug so deep, he was half-way to cutting the guy's arm off.

Within the same motion started with his second strike, he dispelled his sword and ran straight past him and to the next target. The prince knew what he was asked to come along for, shot and pacified the severely injured brawler and ran right after Kris again.

Berdly ran towards his target as fast as he could without compromising his main task. stretched his hands out, aimed his two strange firearms right towards his target and began to fire as consistently as he could.

He had to put all his strength into fighting against the recoil, he wasn't sure whether you were supposed to fire so many times in quick succession, but he had to stop when a stinging pain hit his side and dug its way across his chest. "I'm hit!" From his side, Jandsome shouted something similar.

Kris was just done injuring a second brawler enough for Ralsei to pacify him, and swiftly grabbed a cake out of his bag and handed it to the prince, who knew to run back to where they had sent the others. They pacified the collapsed barkeeper on the way and followed the others around the corner where they had a few moments of cover. Once they had caught up with the others, the prince cast a spell to heal Berdly and smashed the cake in the jester's face.

The human ran after the prince and stopped when he was done healing the others. He fumbled out another piece of cake to eat, tapped Ralsei twice with his wrist and then grabbed the prince's with his hand. "Stay with me!" He pulled him closer and behind the wall and had the others follow him. He tipped Berdly on the shoulder. "Can you shoot them to distract them?"

"You mean cover them in suppression fire." The human nodded. Apparently, Berdly got what he was trying to say. Their little maneuver forced the still coughing brawlers to come out of the smoke. He peeked out to know when they did. The moment they did, he raised his shield and charged right back at the remaining three with Ralsei in tow. The moment Berdly realized what Kris had been planning, he was all the more shocked and confused.

"You crazy weirdo, come back here!" Nonetheless he drew both his weapons again and did as he was told, he covered the one on the right who was aiming at the bounties in fire and hit him multiple times. As soon as they took a few more hits, Kris ate his next piece of cake and fed Ralsei one, too. Right before putting away his shield and cutting down the next brawler.

By then, there was only one left. And he shot Kris twice right in the chest, before getting hit twice himself. After that, it just took a few more shots from Ralsei and Berdly until that last one couldn't stand any more either. The pain was too much for Kris to keep running and he collapsed onto the pavement. Ralsei was stressed, but not as panicked as Berdly expected someone in the light world to be.

He just held his hand down at his friend, it glowed faintly in various colours, and just like that, two bullets fell out and he had the strength to get back up again. The bird was still out of breath from all the excitement and looked back to see the other three slowly come back out of hiding. "Geez. What's gotten into you?" Kris got back up and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Which Berdly didn't think was his primacy concern, as he and Ralsei's faces both were covered in bits of cake.

"They outnumbered us four to six and now..." He looked around to see all of them lie on the ground. "Just how?"

The prince smiled at him. "We burned through half the cakes we brought. We're going to have to get new ones."

"What the hell are you doing?" The very next thing Kris had proceeded to do, was to kneel next to one of their downed adversaries and search through his pockets, until he found his wallet. He opened it and just took all the money he found and put it in his bag. "Don't these guys need medical attention?"

"Don't worry." The younger prince calmed him down. "People recover from wounds like that in the dark realm. If you just give them enough time. I would worry more about what they do after they wake up."

"What do you propose?" The jester had arrived and Janice felt it was safe enough to place Pluma back on the ground.

Kris, who was still for the most part busy looting all the brawlers got up from the third one. "Ralsei. The bounties."

"Oh right. The police offered to lock any brawlers up that we bring them. And we still have a debt to pay off."

"Well in this case." When they looked back at the jester, suddenly, there was a four-wheeled cart next to him, with a horizontal bar at the front, perfect to pull it along. "Let us bring them as many as we can." With little trouble, he just up and picked up two of them and put them on the cart. Then he picked up three more and just carried them on his shoulders. "Let's go."

It wasn't big enough to add the overweight dinosaur, but the cart was hard enough to pull for Kris and Berdly as is. While Berdly checked his phone to know where to go, his classmate couldn't help but ask: "Ralsei aren't these people all going to wake up by the time we're at the station?"

The prince only chuckled. "I wouldn't worry about that." He was flustered and needed a moment to come up with his answer. "The pacify spell I used on them lasts a little longer than the one in the card kingdom."

"You just have a stronger one?"

"Yes. I thought I would need this one here, the people in the card kingdom were nice for the most part. These people are much more intent in killing us."

Now with all their worries in tow, they made their way to the nearest precinct, loaded off all the unconscious darkners. The cops were vague on how much of his debt was settled with those five arrests, but Kris figured that was so they could be flexible with when it was paid off. Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen. But they did get quite the payout, most of which Kris kept for himself. Berdly insisted that he got his share.

Once Kris agreed to pay up, he leveraged this to find out a little more about this lead that Berdly promised. "So where does your 'trail' lead us?"

"Oh, uh." He tried to laugh off the sudden awkwardness. "Right. We have to get to the inner city. The bottom level to be precise." Not because of what lay right ahead of them, but because he wasn't sure where to take this after they met this 'Jevil' person. What would he say? He couldn't just cross this bridge when he got to it. He had to be prepared, but couldn't figure out how.

The prince assured him that they could find a way there. If they were lucky, they could use his door to get closer. They went back, past the unconscious brawler they left behind and passed through the door. Berdly was a bit shaken up by the impact of it closing, but soon enough, while Kris and Ralsei rushed ahead to get more cakes, the bird slowly stumbled across the bricks that made up the pavement of this dark kingdom.

The first thing he noticed, towards the northern end, were the signs. He was told all the houses were empty. At least in so far that nobody was here, but judging by the signs that had been put up at four of them, the prince had already designated one of them to be for some weapons- or armor salesperson, one for an innkeeper, one for a different kind of merchant, and one sign just had a questionmark on it. It implied that he intended to fill this place with someone.

But if Canyon City was the two toy boxes in his room, then where exactly was this kingdom?

Once he had made certain he wasn't imagining this, he walked back and found the open door to the house Janice had mentioned in their time texting and talking on the phone. He shrugged and went in there to sit down on the couch. It was pretty comfortable. Those two were taking their time with those cakes, either that, or that castle was pretty big. But now, he wasn't in such a rush. It was so quiet here. His worries were unfounded, Pluma really was safe here.

It was what came next, them leaving and venturing out there again, that he had to worry about. He really wished Janice and his sister just agreed to sit tight in here and wait while Berdly and Pilot would come up with a way to get him to pull himself together.

Speak of the devil, in big steps, the big jester sat down next to him. "So. What has you so deep in thoughts?" He was talking with that squeak. He was completely in-character again.

Berdly took a leaf out of Kris' book and just stared at him. If Pilot wasn't so terrified and so ashamed of having been so terrified, they wouldn't have been in this mess to begin with. Eventually, he did speak up. "You really should tell her..."

"Shhh!" He was immediately shushed. "Why don't we talk about something else? Your friend is far from hearing range, as is the little girl you're so protective of. And I can see right from here..." He pointed towards the window, through which they could see the road to the castle.

"...if they are coming. So. This grudge you have with your human friend is becoming a stumbling block. Tell me more about this common friend of yours that you mentioned when I asked about your grudge. I believe in the heat of your anger over our predicament, you mentioned a name. Noël?" He pronounced it in a strange way.

"Noelle." With a swing of his hand, the jester summoned a rose out of nowhere and handed it to the off-put bird. He stared at the rose, and then it dawned him. "Oh god. My clock!"

"What?"

"If the entire area is my room, and the cliffs were my closet...oh god. Kris saw the roses. He is never going to let this go!" He leaned onto his legs, ran his hands down his face and mumbled into his palms. "By the angel, he's never going to stop asking what's in my closet, is he?"

In a mockery of any kind of seriousness, the jester sat leaning his head on one of his arms and an exaggerated pout on his face. "If he will not let go of it either way, you might be best off coming clean."

"That's rich coming from you."

The jester's eyebrows rose. "Doesn't make it less true. Now this friend of yours, this 'Noelle'." With another swing of his hand, the rose was out of Berdly's and back in his own. "An interesting name. Don't you think? 'Noelle'. I believe it means 'Christmas' in another language. What are the chances?"

Luckily, they didn't have much more time to talk as Kris and Ralsei already came marching past the house. It was time to set out. While Berdly and Jandsome were still on the way, the prince made the doors open and asked Janice to check where they were.

"Still not quite there."

"I'm sorry." The prince walked outside and turned around waiting for the others to follow. "It appears this is as close to the inner city as I can get us." A look on the map revealed that they were on the very edge of the outer city. Quite a bit along the edge, there was a tunnel that led to the other canyon. "There might be a range of reasons why. We were lucky there were so many possible places for my door as it is. There usually aren't that many."

Now, they knew to be a lot more careful than they were when they first wandered through these streets. They kept to the wall on the inside and peeked around the corner at every crossing. And this time, they were six. They had their eyes open in all directions. For good reason apparently.

One time, when they peeked around the corner to the inside of the canyon, they saw two raptors patrol along a distant crossing. Luckily for them, they weren't intent to turn their way and went in the opposite direction instead.

Finally, eventually, they came by the dreaded tunnel. It was well-lit. Bright yellow light shone on the walls. And their worries proved well-founded, as the broad tunnel, wide enough for six tracks for vehicles to run on, had a makeshift barricade made of two trucks positioned sideways on both ends, leaving open a not so wide area in the middle, which was guarded by three brawlers.

One walked to the side bearing his weapon, but luckily, none of them spotted the jester when he peeked around the entrance. Only three, and they were close together and far away from the corner they were hiding behind. Without any doubt, they were going to pull something bad, there was no other reason for these guys to block off the tunnel like that. But going through the entire situation again, the a grin began to creep up the bird's beak.

They weren't looking for him and Jandsome, that was why the two of them had such an easy time walking through the city. They were only ever a lead to get to Kris and Ralsei. So he had some room to interact with the brawlers without getting attacked on sight.

He asked Jandsome to give him a little headstart and then follow. And then, in complete relaxation, he came around the corner and strolled towards the barricade, while making sure to clearly move to the right, so that Jandsome had a clear line of sight. As expected, one of the three shady figures, immediately approached him with an hopen hand. "Not so fast, sunnyboy."

That wide smile never left Berdly's face. "Why? Are you going to arrest me?"

The guy who stopped him, a hammerhead who had long lost his hat if he ever had one, shook his head. "Not exactly. Nobody gets past here without paying a toll."

"Really? A toll? It's not a different country over there. It's not even a different town. You can't seriously make demands like that." Berdly snuck a glance to the side and saw that Jandsome had followed him, but was staying at a distance.

The corners of the shark's mouth, already naturally turned backwards, were only stretching themselves further down. "Looks like we got someone who doesn't know who's running the show here."

Now all three were walking Berdly's way, and the bird, calm and collected, moved further to the right and backed off by a bit. In fact, he wasn't just calm, he was laughing at them. "Running the show? Really? You guys? You're basic grunts, you're not running anyone's show."

"Okay, that's it." As planned, he had angered them and they all began reaching for their holsters. Only that, as planned as part of their routine, they were all fixated on the bird that was angering them, and didn't notice that all their pistols were bananas. Dangling their real firearms by the trigger guards that spanned around the triggers in front of them with a wide smile, the jester backed off as well and made way for the rest of their group to follow.

Berdly pulled out one of his weapons and began aiming at them. "Drop your bananas, now!" Two of them followed suit. A third one reached into the open door of one of the trucks and pulled out a rifle. But with four loud shots that sent shivers through the bird, he was gunned down immediately and with four more shots, both his friends were hit twice, one of which reached for his friend's rifle.

By then, Berdly had himself collected enough to shoot each one once more, while Ralsei rushed right towards them to pacify one after the other. Berdly wasn't the only one that was shocked, and everyone slowly followed the robed goat boy that had drawn his weapon and emptied an entire magazine to finish this.

They came close enough that after a short sprint, the prince could check on the body. "Not quite dead." With one more glow of his hand, he pacified the last one. This little escalation left the bird worried that this one patrol might have heard the shooting, but as it would turn out as time went on, his constant checking whether they did, wasn't warranted, this time at least.

Ralsei on the other hand, was happy to get an upgrade. He stuffed the weapon away that the commissioner had given him and while Kris was busy emptying their wallets, he got busy searching for ammunition. He got an upgrade now. A semi-automatic rifle.

Kris still couldn't help but address the elephant in the room. "Ralsei, what was that."

The prince was a bit ashamed guessing from how he retreated a bit under the cover of his robe and hat. "That was...me learning from yesterday. With King. We can't be hesitant any more, not when we're dealing with people that are serious."

"With King?" This Ralsei was about their age, but he seemed so timid most of the time. Berdly got curious as to what experience made him just gun someone down in cold blood like this, for all they knew, that guy could have been dead. And on their way through the tunnel, with a jester who carried three unconscious brawlers in a cart in tow, Kris and Ralsei recounted their battle with the king of spades.

The only comment the bird had in the end, was to nod and say: "Really? Healing the guy that's trying to kill you? That really wasn't the smartest thing to do." As usual, his wide grin wasn't met with a lot of approval, as would his responses as they told him more about their previous journey.


	8. Dream a little Dream of Him

Love in Plastic

Chapter 08

Dream a little Dream of him

* * *

"If I could fly like birds on high, then straight to her arms I'd go sailing..." The surprisingly catchy tune of a man singing came out of a radio, accompanied with trumpets, saxophones, a drum set and other instruments. She had to cover her eyes, the light was blinding her too much. Under groans of discomfort, Susie clenched her eyes shut and pushed herself up by her hands.

When she pulled her eyes back open, she realized why the light was too bright. Her eyes had been closed, but she had been looking straight into a bright, strange-looking lamp. She was sitting on the smooth sheets and the soft, even mattress of a king-sized bed. She ran her fingers along the cool surface with its beige, abstract pattern. Then she noticed something. Her skin tone had changed. She wasn't purple any more.

She raised her hands and stared at them. They had taken on the same colour she remembered she had in the dark world. And off her wrists hung the same black leather wristbands with solid, golden spikes. She was in a room, quite a bit bigger than her own. There were night lights to each side of the bed.

In fact, there were lamps on stands in all corners and in key locations around some of the wider comfortable pieces of furniture to sit on in here. Of which there were a lot. The walls were coloured in a soft yellow and drawn-over with a thin brown pattern in the shape of flames that crossed each other in a zig-zag pattern.

She began to shuffle off the bed. The floor was covered in smooth tiles that matched the colour scheme of the walls and a carpet was laid out on top of most of it. There was only one way out of this room short of jumping out of a window. A wide-open door that led into a narrow corridor. A red carpet with vine patterns woven on covered it, and the walls were lined with paintings in golden frames that were carved with a high level of detail.

The paintings all depicted 'waves' or floating 'streams' of people blending into each other while horned creatures stood at the sidelines and burned them or poked or carved away at them with tridents and scythes. "Do you like them?" That came out of nowhere and had even someone like her pull together. A mere metre away to her side, stood a young man.

A caprine creature with a smug expression on his face, a Boss Monster, but his fur was black and his eyes and what little opening there was of his mouth and nose, glowed. A lot like Ralsei. "Is there something wrong? You appear as though you had seen a ghost." He wore a complete snow-white tuxedo and a complete snow-white set of formal attire to match it, down to shoes and gloves. The sleeves of his suit sported light blue cufflinks with white pentagrams engraved on them.

Under his suit jacket, but over his white shirt, hung a light blue tie with a white upside-down cross at the bottom of it. And through a hole cut and woven specifically for that purpose, a top hat was attached to one of his black horns. She just stood there, holding up her elbow in a defensive manner.

Suddenly with a much more timid stance, the stranger took a step back and placed the tips of his fingers on his chest. "Oh goodness, I am terribly sorry. I assumed from your rebellious attire that you weren't so easy to scare."

"What? What?" This man had her from terrified to angry within a moment's notice. "Who are you anyway?"

"I apologize. How very indelicate of me." He kneeled down in front of her, grabbed her hand and sent cold shivers through her skin with a kiss on the back of her hand. She pulled it away immediately and stumbled backwards. "You must be so very confused. Welcome to the second circle of my humble little hotel." She raised her hands and as she expected, she was able to summon the strongly curved scythe she had for an axe, but it dispersed right again in her hands.

"Now now, why the hostility? After all, you're my guest." She backed off further, back into the room with the bed.

She tried to intimidate him by shouting at him and bearing her teeth while she did it. "Where am I? I'm back in the dark world, right? Where's Kris?"

In a slow, smooth motion, the man in the suit took on an overly dramatic thinking pose. "Dark world? Now whatever in the world is that?"

Now, with a few sofas around her that made her feel like she had at least a bit cover, she stopped and remained in place. "Don't play dumb with me! I look like that!" She pointed onto her arm.

He shot her arm a tired glance. "Yes. Are you supposed to look any different?"

"Well...yes!"

Again with the tips on his chest, the caprine man shook his head, the top hat sitting tight on his horn with no sign of being loose. "I feel a little insulted that you insist on something you bring up out of the blue. Why would you not take me at my word? Does this room not look like a hotel room to you?" She calmed down a little and gave the room more of a close look. It was a bit big for a hotel room.

"You are in the 'Suite for the Longing'. A place you wouldn't find yourself if there was no reason. So, if this is not too imposing, ask yourself: How did you get here?" He walked over to the see-through curtains and pulled them aside. Susie couldn't see anything behind them. After that, he pointed to the window and turned back around to her. "Did you climb in through here?"

She shook her head. "Oh heavens. Let's take this slow then, shall we? What is the last thing you remember before coming here? Climbing through any windows? Crawling through any shafts? Turning invisible and sneaking your way through these empty halls?"

He slid his gloved hand along the lean of a very comfortable looking couch that stood in the middle of the room, right in front of Susie. "Please, calm down, relax, lay down. I will humour you as much as I need to." Out of nowhere, a little black cloud formed around his right hand, which then converged into a lengthy, narrow form and took on that of a pair of glasses.

Then the cloud vanished and left behind an actual pair of glasses, which he placed on his face, before making a clipboard with paper and a pen appear the same way and sitting down on a comfy chair that lay at the wall, arranged to allow him to look at the couch he had directed her to.

Susie stood there for a bit, ready to run away or fight him again, intently waiting what he was doing, but he just sat there, staring at her through those glasses. "By the way, apologies for delaying introductions so much. Just where are my manners today? I never even told you my name. If you like to keep it formal, you can call me Doctor Luxon." She continued to stare at him, waiting for something happened.

Nothing happened. So very carefully, she walked over to the couch and sat down on it. "Let's go back to the beginning. The very first conspicuous mention you made were that of a 'Dark World'. What was the reason why you assumed that was where you were?"

"Where else am I supposed to be? Look at me."

"I'm assuming this means you're not supposed to look the way you do?"

"No, my skin's darker and I'm supposed to have brown hair and I don't have these boots and..."

"I understand, different body, different clothing. Just like with my other patient. And the very first conclusion you come to is 'I'm in the dark world'?"

"Why? What are you implying?"

The goat man shrugged. "Well, back to my original question. How did you find yourself in here? Wait. Let's do it the other way round. This 'Dark World', how do you get there as far as you know?"

She found herself stammering. She didn't really know in great detail how she got there. "Well I - well I sort of fell into a closet."

Her host nodded. "All right, a cupboard. And I assume this means the last thing you did before coming here was falling into a cupboard as well."

She had to admit to herself that she was a bit dumbfounded. "No."

"Well? What is the last thing?" It was a little fuzzy. She had to think. Upon looking at him again, he appeared completely calm. "Take your time, just try to remember the last thing you recall from the previous day, latch onto that and retread your steps from there." He wasn't about to get up and attack her. So she began to shift and lie down as he had first asked her to. All while trying to remember. "So school was over, and then me and a classmate were playing card games."

"All right."

"And then it was getting late, so I went home and had dinner, and a shower and I...I..."

"Yes?"

"I went to bed."

"This is the last thing? You went to bed."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to remember. There had to be more, right? But there wasn't. "Yeah. I just went to bed."

Now with a less stern and once again more mischievous expression, he leaned forward by a bit. "May I suggest an alternate explanation than your 'Dark World'? You're dreaming. This is a dream. Now you are correct in that this is probably not your everyday dream. There has to be a reason why you landed in this particular suite and in this particular circle. People don't find their way here without an issue of particular nature to sort out."

"People?" Susie wasn't quite sure what game this guy was playing. "If this is all my dream, shouldn't it be all about me or something? Who else is there?"

"Well I used to be visited by this tremendously distressed young doe who would talk about her worries about a friend of hers. But a few weeks ago, she came to the conclusion that she was misreading signals and stopped coming altogether. The issue wasn't resolved, but it would seem she has moved on. But enough about her, let's focus on you. You fall asleep, next thing you know, you're here.

To find out why, we need to pinpoint what exactly you were thinking about when you fell asleep. This Dark World must be important if you're willing to take such mental leaps to convince yourself you reached it. It must be at the root of why you're here. Tell me everything you know about it. I want to hear the whole story. From the very beginning. The day that you visited this 'Dark World' for the very first time, how did it begin?"

The moment Susie made the faintest sound, she could hear the clicking of him readying his pen to take notes with it. "So I went to school, but I was late. As usual."

"All right."

"And I didn't really wanted to have any classes. So I kinda made the teacher's chalk disappear."

He began taking notes and loudly announcing what they were. "All right, bad work ethic and kleptomaniac tendencies."

She faced him to snap at him for that one. "Hey!"

"Those are only soft notes to know what patterns to look for. Do go on, anything you tell me stays between the two of us."

She leaned down with her head to the side, so she wasn't staring at the light that hung from the ceiling. "So she sent me to get new chalk. But I had the old chalk still on me and I knew if I kept it on me, they'd search me and find it, so I just ate it to make it disappear for good. But then Kris caught me eating it."

"I assume that is bad."

"I knew that if he told on me, that'd be the end. I'm gone. They'd kick me out of school no problem." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that."

He would just continue to note down and leisurely announce all the notes he took. "Caught in a vulnerable position by - 'Kris' - . For one we have a name now. You mentioned this name three times now, by the way."

"Yeah, yeah. So I - uh - I."

"Yes? Go on."

"I sorta grabbed him and uh." Her voice turned more and more silent, the longer she went on. "I kinda...said I'd kill him."

For a second, she was worried that this would be what escalated this whole interaction into some hostile encounter. Instead, the man in the suit continued to take unflattering notes. "Signs of violent tendencies. Also, quick question, if you were going to such extremes, you must have been pretty sure he was going to tell on you, weren't you?"

"Yeah?"

"Now why would that be?"

She vocalized annoyance with this subject. "Whatever. It doesn't matter." She couldn't help but notice that he was quietly noting something down. From what she could guess, the fact that she didn't want to talk about that exact subject. "I didn't do it, okay? I changed my mind, because his mom was my favourite teacher."

"Playing favourites I see. What distinguishes his mother from the other teachers?"

"She..." She looked away. In fact, for a while, dead silence dropped between them. "There was a time when she was the one that actually tried to get me to do school work. The others just thought of me of the girl that's gone soon anyway."

"Possible abandonment issues."

"So I let him go. And I took him along to get new chalk in the supply closet."

"Aha! That's when you got to the Dark World, right?"

"Yes." She giggled. "When I opened it, the whole hallway turned dark and Kris got all scared. But we went inside. And that's that, basically. The closet was all weird, and then we fell into the Dark World."

"All right. So good so far. Please go on, give me every detail." And so she did. In great detail, she began recounting her entire first journey through the dark world, leaving no event, no thought, nothing that caught her attention unmentioned.

* * *

The jumbled group of six had to repeat the play from before soon upon reaching the end of the tunnel, as the other exit was blocked off by brawlers as well. At least this time, the jester thought a step further and made sure that the automatic rifle the enemy had lying around was swapped out for an umbrella by the time it was picked up. That way, a lot less shooting was necessary. Upon first setting foot upon the inner city, they noticed the difference almost immediately.

The very first buildings they came across were in complete ruins. The roofs were gone, either on the ground on the inside or the loose connectable pieces were strewn across the street. Any remaining chatter of past exploits with Susie died down when they saw the kitchen utensils lying on the floor inside, furniture ripped apart, and its presumed inhabitant in the middle of it, with bullet holes in their lifeless body's chest telling the whole story on what happened to them.

And around only two more street corners, they spotted the possible culprits. Behind a crane with a wrecking ball big enough to crush those buildings like that, with shaking hands and arms, a citizen lay with his back to the pavement. A homeless person judging by his torn and dirty clothes. "Please, have some mercy!" He begged for his life, terrified of the raptor that stood over him with a pistol pressed onto his forehead. "Next we - tomorrow! Just please give me one more day, I'll have the money."

The raptor looked over to his partner, a shark in black leather, with silver spikes looking out of every piece of clothing he wore, who just shrugged. "Bled dry, buddy. Ain't gettin no more cash outta this one. Just clap'im"

The poor man was panicking. He shrieked and begged to be spared, but before he - or Berdly and the others who witnessed this, could say anything, he was put to death with two clear shots. A nod from his partner signaled the raptor that they were being watched. With a tired expression, he faced the approaching strangers. "Whatchu lookin' at, huh?"

As soon as they were close enough, Berdly was the one to speak up. "You already took everything else from that guy, did you have to kill him?"

"Deserved it for breathin' our air. Whole canyon's our turf. What y'all clickers build in it is ours. That a problem?"

"Is that some attempt at street jargon or do you just have a speech defect? What? Is getting one language right asking too much?"

"Wrong answer! You's gettin' cla-" He was drawing his weapon, but between the jester's antics, Kris charging right at him without a word and Berdly having his weapons already drawn, this fight didn't last nearly as long as he seemed to expect. Within mere moments, both were already collapsing onto the street and within another one, the second one was pacified. In fact, this was a trend that began with the previous group on their way out of the tunnel.

When they weren't taken by surprise, outnumbered or surrounded, these brawlers weren't nearly as much of a problem as they seemed when one of them pointed a gun at them for the first time. Now loaded with two carts and one jester's arm worth of unconscious criminals, they paced onward, following the bird's map to the nearest precinct.

Granted, that didn't get rid of the demolition equipment, but at least the two operating it were behind bars, and the bounties gave Kris more money to spare.

When they first arrived at the police station, they immediately noticed another massive difference to the other canyon. A large area from below where they expected the city hall to be, all along the outer end of the canyon to right where they stood, was walled off. Completely. All the way to the ceiling.

And those walls looked a lot more solid than the easily broken apart bricks that made up most of the other buildings here. In fact, they followed this massive wall out of curiosity to see how close it would get them to this canyon's central car park and as a matter of fact, it got them really close. They were careful, but they could see the entrance to the central structure from where the wall was.

There was a broad, six-track road leading straight from one to the other. Pilot and Janice seemed to know what this was, but unwilling to talk about it. All they said when asked about it, was that they weren't going to find any help on the other side of that wall. And when asked about that, they explained why that seemingly useless road was there. Like in the other canyon, the rough layout of the city here was the same on all levels, and at the very top, that road actually did lead somewhere.

The sights of comfortable-looking homes brought to ruin for some brawlers' entertainment never left them. Sure, there were homeless in the outer city. But here, the homeless had bigger problems, seeing as most of them were just corpses that littered the ground and while there probably were a few empty houses here and there in the outer city, but at least they weren't nearly as many as here and they weren't outright destroyed and torn down either.

Even if it was a slow progression, this city was turning into a wasteland.

They took a long detour, the same path roughly as Ralsei did when they were on the way to his door for the first time. And to make everything worse, they spotted another pair of very obvious enemies on the way. This time though, they agreed to not taunt or antagonize them and to just take them by surprise.

Once it was settled, Kris nodded and pointed at the corner, behind which the two suspects were standing and whispered: "Berdly, take aim." He then summoned his sword and charged right at them. Berdly did as suggested. He took out both his guns, rushed around the corner and calmly pointed both at one of the two reptiles. But now, something was different.

Something appeared on his target, the same glowing circle and crosshairs that appeared on the big, three-headed rose creature in the very beginning of their travels here. He waited for the outer circle to reach the inner one, and then pulled the triggers. The recoil that pushed his hands back was much stronger than with regular shots. To escape Kris' swings, not knowing he was not aiming for him, the reptile Berdly targeted, jumped to the side.

And the bullets he had fired, changed course mid-flight, hit him in the chest and pierced right through him. He had to repeat this in his mind to believe it. They changed course mid-flight. In all this time ever since his very first fight, he never really used his weapon that way. Then again, he didn't calmly aim at someone like that either, he always fired away immediately or didn't point his weapons at anyone to begin with.

This one double shot was all that was needed from him, too. The sheer force of the attack had launched its target back and onto the ground. By the time Berdly was done staring at the smoking barrels of his guns, Kris and Ralsei had already pacified both enemies. "What's wrong?" The prince noticed that something was concerning him and Kris followed him.

Berdly looked up from his pistols. "I - I saw a thing. I think these things have homing bullets."

The human nodded. "I saw it, too. You used this on the Roserus, too."

"How?"

"It's your magic attack."

The bird raised an eyebrow. "Now that's nonsense if I ever heard any." He swung his hand, and a fan of orange feathers manifested out of thin air and flew in the directions the pointy ends were aimed at before vanishing. "Those are my magic attacks."

The prince shook his head. "The dark world has its own magic." Berdly just looked over at Kris who presented his sword, with the guard that separated the grip from the blade, shaped like the wings of a bat, dispelled his sword, summoned it again, dispelled it, summoned it again, dispelled it again. Overall, summoning a sword out of nowhere was indeed a pretty magical thing to do, and not something a human should have been capable of. "This could be your magic attack, like Susie's."

"What magic attack does Susie have?"

In-between searching the reptiles for money and ammunition for Ralsei, the prince went on to describe her charging her axe with a purple glow and then swinging it to launch a purple energy wave at the enemy. But when he then got to the part where even Kris could charge her axe with the red glow of his soul, the bird stopped him right there. "Okay now that's just stupid. You're messing with me now."

"No, it's true. Kris, show him!"

The human shook his head. "I don't think I can just do that. It just happened in the heat of the moment somehow."

"Yes. Sure. Heat of the moment. What else?" When they were done looting, they made sure to pace ahead at once. Straight to the car park to head all the way down. They didn't slow down until they had passed quite a bit and were sure they weren't going to run into anyone hostile to them for a while.

"So what do you call it?"

Once they could stop for a moment, the bird faced Ralsei. "Call what?"

"Your magic attack."

"I don't think it needs a name."

Kris raised a finger at him. "Susie called hers the rudebuster. And she's rude. You're smug and you shoot them, so...the smugshot?"

Berdly could only laugh this off in a dismissive way. "We're not calling it the Smugshot."

"Aw, come on, why not." That one comment with the name was all Kris had to contribute. The prince continued to pursue Berdly on this though. "It even fits because all the bad guys here are criminals. So they all have mugshots."

"I said, we're not calling it the Smugshot."

The further down they went, the less people littered the sides of their path and the darker it got outside. The 'moons' didn't shine so bright down here. At the bottom level, it got brighter again, but in a different way. The pale light of the lamps that replaced the nonexistent moon didn't shine through the structure's openings at all. Instead, all light came from the ground level itself. Every square metre but the exit was crowded with people.

For once, plastic monsters and brawlers alike, in an area, and no-one killing anyone. At least they had this impression, until while carefully pressing through the masses of people, they saw the crowd open up ahead. The gap opened further their way and past them into the carpark. And once the opening reached them, they saw why.

Two citizens in scrubs carried a stretcher into the car park and towards an ambulance that stood inside with its back doors open. On the stretcher was a crocodile, covered in blood and big, gaping wounds, with tatters of his black leather shoulderpieces hanging off the edge. Ralsei tipped at one of the gawkers to ask him what was going on. "What happened to him?"

"He challenged the clown. No-one's beaten him until now. Isn't that why you're here?"

"Why of course!" Jandsome very swiftly slid between them and pushed them aside, only to then pull out a few multicoloured juggling balls. "From one clown to another, we are here to ask him for advice." To help distract both the people he traveled with, as well as any other onlookers who might tell too much about the clown, he began juggling them and occasionally adding one ball, once the onlookers had made way for him to move around his arms freely.

If it had depended on the street lights or the large lamps at the ceiling of each floor, the entire bottom floor would have been pitch black. However the area was illuminated by the yellow and red light of plain light bulbs that hung off cables that spanned from street light to street light, making barely visible the many stands and attractions that filled the squares around them.

Here, the layout of how everything was arranged and built was completely different. And in the distance, there was no wall, just a giant, brightly glowing tent.

Broad and tall bears in different colours towered over the crowds of people. They were dressed in plaid shirts and jeans with matching suspenders, held together with the same kind of sewn-on buttons that also made up an eye of one of them here and there.

One of them stopped the overeager jester right where he stood and two others came closer as well. They were so big, they still towered over Jandsome's and Janice's height. "You guys are new here!" He spoke with a deep, grumbling voice, and the other two readied their mallets while he went on. "You're not gonna cause any trouble down here, are you?"

"I'm surprised there is so little trouble down here at all."

The bear that addressed them laughed at Berdly's retort. "We'd like to keep it that way. Welcome to the carnival. We allow anyone to enter here, but keep it civil or we will MAKE you civil." His two friends slammed the upper handles of their hammers onto their right hands. A signal that they were ready to smash them to bits if they heed his warning.

"If you want to do any fighting, you either keep it in the upper levels, or you take it to the circus. The arena can always use new blood." After that, all three of them left them alone again, each returning to his post, spread apart within both squares.

Them backing off made way for Kris and the others seeing the whole carnival, with all its shooting stands, carousels, go-carts, a slow train with tracks leading straight through the visitor's area, and with people of all shapes and sizes wandering through the dark. They had to move very slowly not to bump into the people that passed them in various directions.

They wound up keeping to the left side, as the centre with all the stands dedicated to selling all kinds of curious and not so curious wares, was a lot more difficult to move through. The barely penetrable mass of people was filled not just with bears, citizens and brawlers, but all kinds of people.

Some human, some walking constructs of multi-coloured bars, some large dinosaurs, one was just a golem made of countless tiny creatures that were just a face with arms and legs. Most of which were missing something, like an arm or an eye. Rejects that missed bodyparts. Of course they would wind up forming a circus. Berdly didn't say a word about it, but he recognized them from toys from long, long ago. Toys he tossed into the first of the two toy boxes long before all the others. Of course they were at the bottom level of the inner city. Citizens, brawlers, they were buried under everything that came after them.

And even here, in light of the many people and the intimidating bears, who's threat hung over them the whole time, they only moved forward very slowly. Janice led Pluma by the hand, merely following the others and mostly looking down. "Now, now."

Jandsome tapped in front of her, lowered himself to catch her gaze and then rose back up. "Why so glum? This is a place for amusement. Look here!" He gestured to the others to stop and walked up to a stand. It was a simple stand, with juggling balls like his own lined up to be thrown at tin cans. "Excuse me, good sir." He placed a few paper bills on the counter and the man on the other side quickly understood and made way for him.

With three perfectly aimed shots, he won a plush parrot, which he presented to Janice with a graceful kneel, who passed it right onto the little girl she was leading along. The smell of burnt coal filled the air, and all you could hear over the voices that drowned out almost everything that wasn't nigh-screaming, was the sound of accordions and one piano, up on a stage with a sound system broadcasting his song.

Once past the most crowded area, they went back to the middle, past a little bench set up by two more nurses with a stretcher ready for who might need one next, onto the sandy path that led into the wide open entrance to the tent, with bears standing guard on each side. Kris went ahead and asked one of the bears for the way. "Hello. We'd like to talk to the clown."

The burly man didn't so much as budge and kept his guard up in case anyone around got any funny ideas, but even if he refused to look at the small visitor, he did answer. "Ring's on the left, stairs to the seats on the right. Clown's in the ring." It appeared that all of them were bears of little words. Ahead of them, the tent had a slightly curved wall, giving you only left and right as possibly options for paths to take from there. It was as noisy here as it was outside. And visitors were walking back and forth, but they only went to the right.

From above, the drawn-out notes of a horn and an organ overshadowed the music from outside, and trumpets and drums accompanied them. Most of all this seemed perfectly fitting for a circus. The only thing that made Kris a little uneasy was the fact that right on the path to the left, there was a light. Careful and heavily concerned, he touched it. The last few lights came just before the Roserus, just before heading to the airport where they were sent to crash into the sea, on an island with no escape, and in front of a police station in a city where the police were hunted and forbidden from doing anything short of breathing. Every light was preceded by some deadly danger.

"Uh, Berdly..." Before he could start, the ground shook, under the trampling of many, very strong legs and the sounds of a terrified elephant rushing straight past the other side of the plane that separated this place from the ring. When he walked back to his much less shaken-up classmate, he could have sworn he could hear explosions in the ring. What was happening in there? "...Berdly could you tell me a little more about this 'clown', this all seems a bit dangerous."

Berdly avoided looking at Kris. Not that someone like Kris would take note of this or see it as a sign. "You know, I don't know so much about him either." He had to stick to what the infopage had told him. If he told him anything he knew from Pilot, that would have come with risks of being found out. "All I know is that he's omnipotent and took over this circus."

And that this entire exercise was just stalling for time so either him and Kris could make it to the fountain to seal it, or so Pilot could pull himself together, the latter of which was why he shot a glare at the jester that was watching them on their way further down the path. After getting a few steps closer to where the opening to the ring was, most of the rumble inside stopped. Then, one strong thud was followed up by the crowd above cheering all around.

"There goes another contestant!", a presumed director shouted through a microphone. "Now if the nurses would please see to the poor man's health." Then they got past the plane and saw the interior of the ring. It was a normal cylindrical circus ring as you expected it, except that the dirt was littered with puddles of dried-up blood, some of which presumably came from a ten foot tall shark who had collapsed onto the ground.

He had deep wounds everywhere, one in the shape of a curved cone, straight through his back, as if he had been impaled by a horn and his right arm was twisted backwards in such a way that it was impossible to argue that it wasn't broken. "Once more, the champion goes unmatched, are they big, are they small, are they crazy, do they come solo or in numbers, ladies, gentlemen please, another round of applause for the man of the hour! The one that can do anything! A round of applause for: Jevil the Clown!"

At the mere mention of the name, the human and the prince shrugged together and took a clear step back from the entrance, all while the crowd screamed with newfound strength.

Out of the air far above the actual arena, a man in red swung himself off of the trapezes that hung down and onto the body of his latest victim. He was small. Even smaller than the teenagers and visibly so. He sported a suit that came with flower patterns in all colours of the rainbow, all at once, the main parts of which were red.

His curly hair was styled in a flawless, deep red bulbous haircut and his face was painted over white with black stars over his eyes, red paint around his lips and a dark red clown nose sticking onto the middle of his face. He had much too large shoes, one green, one yellow, and some of his yellow teeth peeked out of his open smile. The only thing that didn't match the bright rainbow that made up the rest of his costume, was the tail, curled up to form his signature 'J'.

"Nope." By the time Berdly had gotten a good look at the clown and noticed that Kris and Ralsei were gone, they were already almost at the exit, so he ran after them and Jandsome knew better than to enter the arena as well.

Only Janice took a step forward. The clown adjusted the miniature sunflower that hung out of his jacket pocket and hopped off his last challenger so the soon arriving nurses could begin to heave the big guy onto something to help carry him out of here. "And before the previous one is even out, we have a new challenge - " The circus director choked for a second when he saw who it was. "Ja-Ja...please give them a minute, ladies and gentlemen."

"GREETINGS, OLD FRIEND." Jevil smiled right at Jandsome, who followed right behind Janice and Pluma. "WHAT LEADS A KINDRED SPIRIT LIKE YOURSELF BACK INTO MY CIRCLES?"

Before the jester could answer, Janice stepped closer once again. "We're looking for Pilot!" She presented a picture of herself and him pulled right from her wallet. "My friend here told me you knew where to find him." The jester took a step back and to the side to make sure neither of the other two were looking and began to shake his head when exchanging looks with the little creature. "Have you ever seen this man?"

Jevil's whole body shook with his uncontrollable snickers. "WHY, MY FRIEND. THE ANSWER LIES WITHIN! I COULD NOT BRING YOU ANY CLOSER TO WHOM YOU SEEK, IF I WANTED TO."

Jandsome could practically feel the hope vanishing from her, just from how her shoulders dropped and the angle of her head dropped ever so slightly. "I understand. You won't help me, will you? This was a mistake." She turned around and began to storm back out of the arena. The nurses were only coming in right now, but everyone could see they would need to request for more help if they wanted to get someone as big as this shark out of here.

She paced back outside and the jester tapped ahead of her and tried to stop her. Once she was out of the arena for certain, he stopped backing off to make way for her. "Now, now. No need to rush things so much." She was seriously distressed, but this didn't help his willingness to come forward either, instead, he grabbed her by the wrist and made sure their eyes met. "Please, one moment of peace."

She stopped moving and struggling and indulged him, even if only for a second. "Let the lightners talk to him. They have a habit of solving things in strange ways. Maybe they can find out more." Now pretty cross, she wrestled herself free of his grip and began to walk back outside to follow the teenagers.

"Kris?" When Kris and Ralsei marched right outside, Berdly ran after them. "Kris come back!" He knew Kris was weird, but his prince friend was marching off with him. "Hey!" He didn't catch up until they were already back outside. "What's gotten into you two?"

"We're not doing this, Berdly." Kris stopped and was facing him straight on. He wasn't being weird absent Kris, this was something different.

"What is wrong with you? Let's just go talk to the guy."

"You said we'll visit a clown. You didn't say we'll visit Jevil."

"So what if that's his name, huh?"

Ralsei poked the sleeve of his jacket with one claw to draw his attention. "You don't understand, we know Jevil from somewhere else."

Kris pointed at him. "Wait, we even told you about that part. Remember the part about the guy who went crazy and started killing people because he thinks everything is a game? The one that has all the symbols for attacks and where us surviving was a miracle? That's him. Jevil is the crazy guy."

"Wait, so you're seriously telling me that's the same Jevil from your story?"

They both nodded very insistently. "If this is the same Ralsei, that's the same Jevil!"

"How? I thought you - wait, look." Berdly had to take a step back and strike out for a bit. "If this Jevil is the same one you know, wouldn't hat mean he's a darkner from the abandoned classroom?"

"Yes?"

"Well if the people you ran into there were all kinds of playing cards, I guess that makes him the joker. But why is he here? How is he here? How is a joker card from the abandoned classroom in a toy box in my room?" The human and the prince could only shrug. None of them had an answer. "Did you bring him here?"

"Nope. Didn't bring anything from that room with me except the horns. You were there anyway."

"Yes, but I thought maybe you...yeah I guess if you did bring him here after all, why deny it? Still, even so how IS he here, exactly?"

"If I may interject." By now, Jandsome and Janice had caught up, and the jester stepped in-between the heated youngsters. "Maybe for the time being, it is best not to focus on how he is here, and more on the fact that he is."

"What are you implying?"

Jandsome stepped back and swung his arms around to present Janice. "The pretty lady right here has already tried her luck to find out the whereabouts of her lost friend, with little to show. But perhaps you lightners have more luck in this regard?"

Berdly faced Kris, with the movable corners of his beak drawn into as much of a frown as was possible for him and snorted through the nostrils in his beak loud enough for Kris to notice. "So?"

The human just wouldn't stop staring at him. "If we're visiting Jevil, we're not doing it just like that. I'm not buying that he isn't turning this into a fight. We have to prepare properly."

"What?" Berdly raised his hands. "What do you suggest?"

He didn't like how a faint smile crept up the human's face. "Well..." Berdly would soon come to regret asking Kris for suggestions, as what Kris had in store for him, was to turn out to be more effort than Berdly was originally willing to agree to.


	9. Don't Jam with the Jevil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Susie continues to wonder whether she is in the dark world or a figment of her own mind, Kris, Ralsei and Berdly are to approach the clown themselves and with more preparation. In hopes that he might have the answers they're looking for.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 09

Don't Jam with the Jevil

* * *

Susie told this mysterious black goat in white everything about her journey through the Card Kingdom. Not far into it, he began asking her to add to each point she remembered, what they all made her think and feel. And she had to admit, it felt relieving sharing all of it. How she really enjoyed unloading on those darkners in the beginning, how she had fun joining Lancer's side and coming up with all kinds of little plays and gimmicks to try and stop or at least startle Kris and Ralsei.

And the ways they reacted each time. Ralsei with so much played-up surprise, she felt a bit insulted and Kris with barely anything at all. Each time she tried surprising him only caused a barely noticeable stir. She missed out on no opportunity to rail against Kris for not dignifying her and Lancer's little plans and ideas.

They put so much effort in the little play to put up Lancer as an unwitting stranger. And he barely reacted to that either. He played along, but she had been looking forward to seeing a terrified look on his face, and there was none.

Then again, when did he ever really make a face? He was the freak that just stayed away from everyone most of the time. Except that one time just before they went to the supply closet. At least then, for once, he dignified her with an actual reaction. Not that he didn't interact with her after that.

He and Ralsei were both freaks, but they had their own ways of doing so. Always asking her to join them on their stupid little adventure. Telling her to stop swinging her axe at people. Outright asking her to flirt with strangers. At least he wasn't asking her to flirt with him.

It was different. All of it was different from being back home. Even before, at school, at home, even when doing some more fun things that others didn't like her doing, there was a reason why she lost her cool a little bit and was almost jumpy around the others earlier today. Back when she was convinced she could just open up the door to that closet and land in the same magical land as before.

Everything out there was so...dull. So uninteresting. Even if she struck and carved the paint off of a wall, went to places and made the staff's belongings disappear or even that one time she grabbed the opportunity when a kid was left alone with their toy to throw their toy into the nearest pond and run away, when she woke up the next day, she would in the same bed in the same apartment building in the same town.

There was no point to listening to anything anyone said, because everything was the same no matter what she did. It didn't matter. Being in a whimsical place where fighting was normal, you took people head-on and every new area had new strange things to discover, it was the first time in years that she was actually really excited about something.

"Hm..." As time went on, Luxon had stopped announcing everything he noted down, but now, after she was just telling him everything for a long time, he spoke up. "I think I have a good picture of everything that happened. But now, let's emphasize the inner workings. If you had to summarize what exactly about the dark world you like so much that makes you want to go there, what would that be?"

All those little moments. Kris and Ralsei being surprised when she just switched sides, Kris and Ralsei running into her in the maze, Kris and Ralsei trying so hard to inspire her to join their stupid little group of 'heroes', Kris warning the enemy when she was about to chop them to bits, Kris trying to order her around and her ignoring it, Kris actually giving her commands towards the end.

Kris leading her and Ralsei by the hand to drag them out of many of that noisy Jevil's attacks. That moment when Ralsei surprised her by revealing his weirdly familiar face. Kris jumping in the way when King had her in a bad spot and was about to finish her off. Overall, if she had to narrow down what she wanted out of the dark world, was this feeling. Feeling invincible.

Having someone she could really trust with her life. In the end, safety. In a single world, in the dark world, she felt safe. In a way she never did in the light world. And her conclusion raised some eyebrows from her imaginary psychiatrist. He just shook his head in disbelief. "What a tremendously silly notion."

She was caught a little by surprise there. "What? Why?"

"You just described travelling through a country where everyone save for a handful of people, most of which you describe as 'freaks' or 'weirdos', is out to kill you. Is anyone out to kill you in the light world?"

This question by itself made her feel weird. She felt like she was constricted. Like she was pressed together from all sides. She looked down on the floor. "No- no. I mean sometimes I think everyone is hoping something like that happens. But no. No-one's out to kill me in the light world."

"Then why is it that you feel safe when you're in the dark world, and not when you're back home?"

She just wound up staring at the floor. Not knowing what to say. While she continued to stare, her host gave his phone a quick look. "Hm, interesting." The clipboard and pen dispersed into the same black clouds they appeared from and he pushed himself up from his seat to get up. "I'd say we're at the end of our time for today. We've already gotten one clear step closer to why you're here."

Almost dancing along his way, the black boss monster tapped back to the entrance door. Susie had to close her eyes and sigh, before she had it in her to get back up. She followed him through the corridor, but throughout the entire time of following the beaming, fancy-dressed man to a golden elevator at the side of a stairwell, the question he posed was stuck in her mind. Every time the guy shot her a grin, she glared back at him.

All walls inside the elevator that weren't the exit or the wall with the control panel attached to it, were mirrors. Once the doors were closed and the elevator moved upwards, the goat was surprised to still see her be upset. "Oh come on, cheer up." He took a step back and summoned a cane to lean onto with one hand.

"I have good news for you. A few interesting things are happening out there. And I might have an interesting deal for you. You get to have everything you want. A magical dark world adventure in an all-new dark realm, with Kris and Ralsei at your side. What do you say? Do we have a deal?" He grinned, leaned forward, pulled the white glove off his hand to reveal his black paw with pink pawpads and extended it her way. "Just shake my hand, and the deal is sealed."

She stood in place, looking up and down between this man's smiling face and his hand. "Wait, you serious?"

"Of course. But even if I weren't, even if I was lying, would it matter? Is this a dream, is this the dark world? No matter what I say, I could be lying. This could be the dark world and I merely told you it was a dream. It could be a dream and I'm a figment of your imagination, telling you I'm a real person in the dark world. Then again, we are all clay to be shaped by you lightners through your hands and your minds. Is there much of a difference between the dark world and a dream?"

She took another step back and readied her axe. "Aha! So this is the dark world!"

Not the faintest bit of his grin vanished. "And yet you woke up here upon falling asleep. It should be a dream, shouldn't it? I should be a figment of your imagination. Then again, what are we to you, if not figments of your imagination, given form within a world of your dreams? In the end, all you can do, is stop asking yourself these questions, as it all blurs together when you think about it." She kept her battle stance, but she also kept staring at this hand.

She really felt like accepting this deal. Could he give her what he promised? If it was just a dream, what was there to worry about? But then, what if it wasn't? Then it occurred to her, why she had a bad feeling about this. "Wait a minute, where's the catch? What are you getting out of this? A deal's got two sides, right?"

A wide, glowing grin formed on his face. "Clever girl." He took his hand back and stood upright again. "Yes. It always comes at a price. And save for exceptions at my leisure, I never tell anyone what the price is, until I come to collect. It depends. Are you willing to take that risk? Are you willing to risk any price as long as you get your little adventure with your two friends?"

The way he said this only emboldened her distrust in him. After a few moments, he raised his hand and waved her way with all of his hand, down to his wrist. "Oh come on, I was just tempting you. Feeling out how easy you are to goad into making a mistake. Little piece of advice: Never accept a deal if you don't know what price you're going to pay. Especially not with me. Because it will never be something you like."

With a rumble, the elevator stopped and the golden doors slid open. It led into something akin to a reception. With a counter, a comfortable tiled floor with carpets that extended all the way into he corridors to the sides and the staircase. The yellow lights doused the beige walls in a comfortable glow. But this reception wasn't where they were headed. Dr. Luxon led her further, through a golden door, out into a much more noisy indoor balcony that hung over a larger area below.

"What is this place?" Susie went to the edge of it and leaned over the railing. They were in a huge hall. To the left was an uneven arrangement of trumpeters, saxophonists, bassists, an entire orchestra of musicians. On the stage, a man in his thirties surrounded by female dancers was singing a song similar to the ones playing on the radio in the hotel. In the middle, the bright, well-lit hall was full of white, round tables.

Monsters of all kinds from dogs, to birds, to cats to hoofed mammals, sat at the tables, and more Monsters walked back and forth between the tables and an area below that Susie couldn't see.

She barely noticed when Mr. Luxon had followed her and gazed down with her. "Look at their faces. So many of us, you lightners create in your own image. They look absolutely beautiful, do they not? Downright magnificent." He turned her way, and every time she made a slight move back, he followed her.

"I was once beautiful too, you know. Now, I must tell you, I have enough of an understanding on how the light world works, to know you in particular, are not to blame. I don't hold this against you. Nonetheless. Not long after my creation." His gaze grew more and more sinister. The inner corners of those glowing eyes shifted further and further down.

Then, still pursuing her, he spun around himself in one swing and pulled his top hat off. Within the same motion, he surged right towards her face with something that replaced his face that was outright disturbing and impossible to describe in an apt and expedient way.

It was as though bits and pieces of his white face were torn and stretched far out, turned around in corners, only to tear right through his face again. "This is what you did to me! Why did you do this to me, Susan? Why did you ruin my face!" The shock clamped down on all of her so much, she physically shrugged together and found herself out of breath, in complete darkness. In panic, she reached around left and right, but as she did, gradually, she began to realize what she felt was the fabric of her bed.

In time, she settled down and sighed her last lingering worries away. It was just a bad dream.

* * *

They wandered past all the stands on the carnival in search for something, and here and there, they even found what he was looking for. Equipment. Kris wasn't willing to agree to visit Jevil under any circumstances, unless they were at least as well-equipped as they could be. And for that, they needed special equipment for adventurers. Whether or not it was enchanted in some way, although, it probably was, here and there, what Kris was looking for caught his eye. One such piece of equipment, was a stetson hat to replace Berdly's bowler, that Kris and Ralsei insisted improved his defenses, as did the two slabs in matching colours that they brought and stuck to his jacket. It also added coolness, which apparently improved his ability to taunt his enemies.

After the stetson though, their funds were mostly drained. This kind of particular equipment was expensive. After that they actually made their entire group of six march back up to other levels of the inner city and purposefully track down, pursue and attack brawlers to pacify them, loot them, bring them to police stations and collect their bounties. Grinding, as Ralsei called it.

And after a lot of grinding, they had more ammunition than Ralsei could ever need, and more than enough money on hand to buy whatever Kris insisted they got first. The equipment they wound up buying were a black leather shoulderpiece for Kris to put on his unprotected shoulder, over his cape, a pair of white silk gloves for Ralsei that made his touches more delicate, and lastly, a new sword for Kris.

A bright yellow one with a round tip to the lower end of its grip, that had a red, five-point star engraved to it. A Baphyblade as the merchant called it.

With all this, it was finally time. They were ready. Ready as they could be. Kris still had a small fortune left, but they didn't find anything really good anymore. The closer they got to the big circus tent, the more hesitant Kris and Ralsei were to get any closer. Eventually, Berdly just grabbed Kris by the arm. "Don't be so scared. Maybe he won't attack us and we can just talk to him." Kris wasn't so optimistic.

When passing inside, with the crowd already eagerly waiting and musicians rushing in and out, he walked off to the side and touched the light. The organ didn't stop playing and the continuous, and slowly intensifying beat of the drums spoke tales of the audience's impatient bloodthirst. "Hey! What's keeping you?" When he ventured ahead, Berdly noticed that Jandsome was staying behind with Janice and Pluma, with quite some distance. "You not coming?"

"We already tried. And my tricks won't work on him if he wants a fight." Even so, easy enough, Berdly thought to himself. They had some vague semblance of a plan. All he had to do now, was to ask Jevil where pilot was, Jevil would either refuse to say or spill the beans in front of Kris and Ralsei, and then they would back off and this whole mess would finally start to unwind itself so they could focus on sealing the fountain and going home. No battle necessary.

Slowly, they stepped into the brightly lit interior the light brown dirt that covered the ground was littered with spatters of blood. And on the ground, the little man stood with his bright red hair cut in a bulbous shape. Dressed in his primarily red rainbow suit.

Smiling with that painted on face and raising an arm either to greet old friends, or to present his latest victims to his audience. "NOW WHAT IS THIS? CURIOUS, CURIOUS. DO I SEE A FEW FAMILIAR FACES? HAVE YOU COME FOR ANOTHER GAME?"

Kris pushed himself past Berdly. "What are you doing here?"

He snickered. "I RESTED, HIDDEN IN THE SHADOW OF ONE OLD FRIEND, WHEN ANOTHER WOKE ME, AND TOLD ME OF MORE ENJOYMENT TO BE FOUND HERE."

"Yes but, how did you get here?"

The corners of the clown's bright-red mouth rose, as did the painted-on green eyebrows. "HOW DID YOU?" What was that even supposed to mean?

Kris' questions weren't going anywhere, Berdly pushed him aside. "Wait, you!" Jevil slightly tilted his head at this new face. Everything was in place for Berdly. He had all the witnesses he needed. "You talked to Pilot! I know for a fact that you did! Where do we find him?"

"NOW THIS IS ONE QUESTION THAT IS NOT IN NEED OF ANSWERING. NOT FOR YOU. NOT FOR ANYONE HERE. LIKE I SAID TO YOUR FRIENDS. THE ANSWER LIES WITHIN. BUT SHEESH, ALL THESE QUESTIONS ARE SUCH A STRAIN ON THE MIND. WHAT WE NEED IS SOME EXERCISE FOR THE BODY."

When Kris and Ralsei began slowly backing off, Berdly followed them, while still talking back. "No. Please not. We don't need any exercise."

"OH." Jevil made a backwards salto to gain a little distance. "YOU DON'T, ARE YOU SURE?" When they turned around, the three of them shrugged together out of surprise, more so than him Ralsei and Kris. The entrance to the arena was walled off when they weren't looking. With solid concrete. "LET ME SEE FOR MYSELF."

In the air above all of them, an oversized, floating pistol appeared out of nowhere. It was a revolver, that came with a royal blue barrel, a black grip, and overall shared the colours of Jandsome's costume and Jevil's tail. Complete with little golden bells hanging off the barrel.

As though by invisible hands just like how it held itself in the air, the hammer on the back of the weapon, with another bell hanging off its tip pulled itself down to ready a shot, and then the trigger pulled itself. Instead of an actual shot being fired though, a pole shot out and hung out of the front end, with a lengthy white flag hanging off of it that had the word 'Bang!' written on it in the colours of the pistol.

At once, Kris screamed in Berdly's ear. "Move!", jumped to the side and dragged Berdly with him. When he pushed the human's arm away and turned around, he began to understand why. The ground where they had just stood was rising and bloating up as if it was a balloon being filled with air, and then blew up with a loud explosion, the force of which he could even feel after dodging it.

He got up as fast as he could. This guy was every bit as crazy as Kris and Ralsei had said. "Hey!" He shouted at him. "Do you want me to just shoot you?" He pulled out his guns to show he was serious.

The clown, bouncing up and down by leveraging the front ends of his oversized shoes, only laughed as always. "OH, THIS PIDGEON THINKS HE CAN SWIM WITH THE SHARKS? INTERESTING. BE MY GUEST. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!" After Jevil almost killed all of them, Berdly was happy to oblige and just began firing away, only to realize after a mere second, that Jevil was already gone. "OH. LOOKS LIKE I'M HERE. NOW."

The clown pulled his mouth open with both hands to shoot them a grimace with his unnaturally long tongue stretched out and those spiky, yellow teeth peeking out as well. But while the bird turned around to look at him, he was pulled aside by his two peers, because two bright, successive white 'diamond' symbols shot his way. The had Kris and Ralsei to thank for not getting hit by them.

He shot him again. "OH, AND NOW I'M OVER HERE." again Jevil was gone, he was pulled aside, and realized the clown was somewhere else and had fired two more diamonds their way. He tried to shoot Jevil and was pulled aside a few more times before he began to get the idea and dodge the incoming counter-attacks on his own. "OH, MISSED AGAIN!"

After a whole wave of these attacks, they could catch their breaths, as Jevil had calmed down and was just standing there, spreading one arm and bowing to the cheering public above. There had been so many of these projectiles, Berdly was surprised that they managed to not get hit a single time. "Phew, so much for this."

Kris was a lot more collected than he remembered him when they entered the tent. "Good. We dodged all of them. We'd be in trouble if not. He dodged all your shots before, maybe he'll let us hit him now that it's our turn."

Ralsei pulled him back when he was about to take a step forward and give commands. "I don't think it works that way any more. We have to come up with something else."

"Berdly. You said your Smugshot shoots homing bullets, right?"

This earned the two a very annoyed look from Kris' classmate. "We're not calling it the Smugshot."

"Right, just take aim then. So If they're really homing, they'd hit him no matter what, right?"

He wasn't sure why Kris was expecting the kind of certainty he appeared to be asking for, so Berdly just shrugged. "Yes. I assume as much."

"Here's what we do. First, Berdly, you fire a smugshot right at him, make sure it does work. Ralsei, you wait at first. The bullets will chase him, and when they hit, he'll be startled for a moment. That's when you hit him with everything you have. So, Berdly, ready?" He confirmed. "Ralsei, you ready?"

The sound of releasing the now slightly raised rifle, was loud enough for the two of them to hear. "Locked and loaded."

"Okay. And..." He stopped for a moment. "Berdly. If he attacks us with weird stuff after all this, just follow my lead, okay?" Berdly stared at him with a very annoyed expression. Those narrowed eyes had to have been obvious enough to get his disapproval across, even for Kris. "Come on. We got this far, just trust me, okay?" He took a deep breath, and then just nodded.

Kris was right. They did get this far. All those shots he helped Berdly dodge before, not to mention all the fights with brawlers, he blamed Kris for their early hiccups, but at this point, had earned another chance. Once he was sure that his classmate was going to follow his lead, Kris turned around and faced the clown. "So. Let's go." Now he stepped forward swung his arm forward to point straight at the clown and shout: "Berdly! Take aim!"

As commanded, he raised both his pistols, aimed calmly at the disguised jester and watched the glowing symbols form at him. When the larger, shrinking circle passed the smaller one, he pulled the triggers and was again forced back slightly by the stronger recoil. And just as Kris had figured, and just as it had happened before, Jevil vanished and the bullets changed course mid-flight, straight past them and onto a different corner, where they pierced right through his clothes and onto him.

When they struck, they tickled a sound of surprise out of the startled clown. "Ralsei, now!" The prince grabbed the opportunity, aimed right at his now stumbling target, pressed the back of his weapon against his shoulder and pulled and held the trigger.

An ear-shattering barrage shot right at Jevil and pierced entire patterns of holes into him. The clown's head popped out of his body like a jack-in-the-box. He bled from the other side, at least for a moment. "WHAT IS THIS! AT LAST SOMEONE WHO CAN FOLLOW UP ON MY PLAYS." He was as unimpressed as he sounded.

Within seconds, his head lodged itself back in place and he recovered right before their eyes. His torn, rainbow-coloured suit restored itself until it was flawless again as well. "AT LAST, WHAT FUN. LET'S CELEBRATE!" With another swing of the clown's arm, a several metre wide bowl just appeared to grow out of the ground in the very middle of the arena. Inside, a bright pink mass began to stir. "A SWIRLING SWEETNESS, A SIN TO YOUR TEETH FOR SINNERS IN ALL SIZES!"

Again, the crowd cheered and clapped in anticipation of something they probably already knew from past battles. The stirring liquid mass began to harden, and then two rows of strands of bright pink cotton candy, eight on each of them grew out of the bowl. They almost reached the width of one of the three heroes, and extended themselves to the outer ends of the arena.

"Arms!" Kris rushed between Ralsei and Berdly and presented to them his stretched out elbows, and they both quickly understood that he meant to hook their arms into his. Jevil was all about entertainment, so of course the best way to dodge his attacks, would resemble a dance. Once the strands of cotton candy were at their full length, and for some reason didn't seem to fall down in spite of nothing holding them up.

A second later, it turned out that something was doing so after all. From within each strand, a widening metal bar made itself apparent that ran through the middle of each one and held it together. And not only was it itself growing wider, very painful-looking metal spikes shot out of all ends of it, which peered visibly out of the cotton and these floating constructions, still coming out of the bowl but arranging themselves to take turns in being high and low at each radius from the centre, began to spin. Too fast to just roll along. If those things touched any of them, it would be extremely painful.

Kris guided the three of them to face one of the bent rods spinning around their inner axis. At least they weren't moving around too erratically, they were obviously divided in small segments, each one of which was spinning individually.

Then, they began to move, the bowl, and with it, all the cylindrical segments that had grown out of it, began to turn around the bowl and within mere moments, one of said curved rods closed right in on them, with the segments that closed in on them at a little less than their knee's height. "Jump!" Kris shouted, before leading them closer to it.

He kneeled ever so slightly to give them a clearly recognizable motion that they could move roughly in sync with, and then all three of them stepped or jumped over the deadly cotton trap unscathed. "Duck!" After this, they lowered themselves and began to crouch, passing right under the next rod that had chosen its path at their standing height at the distance to the centre they were at.

Then shortly after passing them, Kris stood upright and by doing so, got them to do the same. "Jump!" He approached the next one, which was again at below-knee's length and they all managed to step or jump over it. "Duck!, jump! Duck, jump!" It was a slightly rough start, but Berdly and Ralsei soon got the hang of following the strict back-and-forth between jumping over the low segments and ducking under the high ones, over and over until they made a full circle.

After that, to their relief, it stopped. The spikes retracted themselves, the cotton-wrapped cylinders that made up the rods shrank back down to actual curved rods and with it, the pink delicacy seemed a lot less dangerous.

"TAKE IT! TAKE IT ALL!" Now that it wasn't dangerous any more, a whole swarm of handy white plastic sticks appeared and floated in the air, arranged along the fluffy mass. With nothing visible causing it, the stuffy goodness wrapped itself off of the floating metal bars and onto all of the plastic sticks, until each one had a sizable amount of it wrapped around it.

After that, they all floated further and further up, and shot in all directions, spreading themselves across all of the audience's seats. Of course the audience loved the questionably clean, but free sweets.

At last, they could let go for a moment. And once they gathered themselves, Kris reminded them. "All right. We hit him. We're doing the exact same thing again. Let's go. Berdly! Take aim!" They repeated what they did before, watched the bullets turn course when Jevil vanished, and once he was startled from getting hit, the prince emptied his magazine on him.

It worked, again. But again, he recovered within seconds, before shaking his head. "AMAZING! NOW, LET'S TAKE A LITTLE TOUR!"

For a moment, Berdly lost balance, felt something pull at various places, then he noticed he was back right next to Kris and Ralsei, with the human in the middle. The three of them were sitting on unicycles and thin white ropes thoroughly tied their legs to them. All three of which were attached to one another side by side.

And they were mid motion and had to quickly switch to pedaling to not fall over. "Don't look back." the human said, as they slowly made their way to the other side of the arena. "I said don't look back!" Berdly didn't listen. He snuck a glance to the back and shrugged together when he saw why he was told not to look. Right behind them, a hysterically laughing clown with his tongue all out was sitting in a tiny car.

He was chasing them very, very slowly, but the car itself wasn't the problem, rather the cranes with axes attached to their ends that were reaching out and swiping their blades through the front of the clown car. All three of them did their best not to lose balance and to pedal in sync and move away from the self-swinging weaponry.

Eventually though, trouble was on the way, when they got closer to a corner. "Only Ralsei, stop!" Kris and Berdly kept pedaling, so that the unusual vehicle they were given was mostly staying in place while taking a turn right. "Both forward."

Once the prince resumed pedaling with the others though, the three of them moved again, now in a direction that wasn't met with a soon dead end, and of course, their pursuer took that curve eventually as well. "Ralsei stop. Both Forward. Ralsei Stop. Both Forward."

They did this a few more times, until with a similar momentary loss of balance, the unicycles disappeared, as did the rope that tied them to them and the vehicle that pursued them. Ralsei fell on the ground as a result of it and was happy to see Kris help him up.

"What now?"

"Same thing again. We have to pull through this."

"But we're not dealing any damage!"

"We are, kind of. It worked that way last time."

The bird sighed. "If you say so."

Once Ralsei was done loading a new magazine, they redid their routine. Berdly taking aim, Jevil dodging, only to get hit anyway, and Ralsei unloading on him. And again, it accomplished nothing. It only made him laugh and dangle that sprung-out head of his. And the moment that wore off, he jumped up and announced to the suddenly quiet audience: "CAN OUR VISITORS DODGE A FEW WARNING SHOTS? METAMORPHOSIS!"

He shrank and vanished, and in his place, three revolvers similar to the one from before appeared, each one targeting one of the three.

Kris had only one command to shout in response: "Run!" Each one began running for their life. Occasionally stumbling over a patch of earth that was bloating up a little closer or further than they liked. Explosion after explosion, and towards the end, they only just got away each time. Then, in the end, one explosion was a little too far ahead, and Berdly ran right into it. It cut his jacket open and the pain, while the strongest in his chest where it hit, arched its way everywhere.

Good thing this was it, and the other two could quickly run his way and patch him up. The crowd groaned with disappointment over the three taking their first hit. Jevil had appeared again, about as far away as he had started. "We can't let up. Berdly! Take aim!"

And again with the same routine. Except that instead of just occasionally bowing to the viewing public, upon recovering from Ralsei's latest barrage, he began bouncing and bouncing and not just in place, but in a wide circle, high up to talk to the people watching a little more closely. "RESOURCEFUL! SHALL WE TRY OUR FRIENDS A LITTLE MORE?" The crowd cheered. "MAYBE SEND THEM ON A LITTLE SAFARI."

The crowd went wild with excitement. With three sideways jumps, he swung his arm and even though he was nowhere near close enough to touch them, Kris, Berdly and Ralsei were all launched into one corner of the arena. A twenty-foot-tall circular metal fence shot out of the ground and separated them from the inner part of the area. Then the ground beneath them trembled. It shook under a continuous force none of them could see.

With a frantic stare in what Berdly could catch in his eyes, his classmate grabbed him and Ralsei by the wrist and began running and pulling them along in one direction at a speed that spoke of fear. Soon later, the source of the trampling manifested out of thin air, not too far behind them in the fenced ring they were stuck in.

A huge stampede of all sorts of gazelles, buffaloes, lions, elephants, even with a few crocodiles waddling behind them as fast as they could. Feral creatures from parts of the world so savage, even the humans from there killed and ate each other. The roars coming from behind only spurred them on all the more.

Seeing as they weren't particularly tall, the animals closed in on them at an alarming rate, but the head start Kris gave them by pulling the along to run long before the animals actually appeared carried them far enough to complete a little less than a circle around the arena, after which the stampede phased back into the ground.

This time, after their routine, something changed. Berdly and Ralsei were almost knocked off their feet when the earth of the arena itself, what they thought was just part of the even ground the tent was built on, began moving. Spinning around. Jevil began jumping in place, turning in all directions, spreading one arm each time to wave at the audience. "AND NOW, AN OLD CLASSIC!"

Kris gestured for the two of them to hook into his arms again and positioned himself in a specific place of which Berdly didn't really understand why this position in particular. Then, in rings that spanned the entire area and moving inward and outward serpentines, the horses and giant ducks of a carousel appeared and floated in circles opposite to how the ground was spinning.

Each carriage had sharp blades lining its sides and was coming at them with terrifying momentum. With little room to stray away from him, the human led the other two in a continuous and very strange half-circle that was interrupted along the way to start a new one. Over and over, with the occasional touch-up here and there, they just cycled through the same smaller route more or less in place, while trying not to lose balance in sight of the constantly moving ground.

And strangely enough, it worked. The painful-looking carriages almost hit them a lot of times. But only ever almost, this disturbing, confusing route they were moving in kept them completely out of harm's way from start to finish. Before Berdly knew what to make of it, the carriages stopped. Jevil kept waving at the people above, and the people sounded like they loved his signature attack, but the carriages were gone. Except that the ground was now continuously in motion.

And to his horror, this wasn't the end of it. In fact, it was only the beginning. What followed for him and Ralsei was to brave through several cycles of repeating those same maneuvers, but with more troubles added. They had to dodge their way through the cotton candy trap, only that it was faster than before and more difficult with the ground they walked on moving in the opposite direction.

And in a later cycle, the cotton candy trap wasn't arranged in a way that let them follow a strict duck-jump pattern, they had to adapt to variations. The ground spinning the way it did also removed some of their head start when they were thrown to the edge and chased by wild animals the next time. They had to account for it when running from the explosions because running counter to the spin slowed them down and put them at risk of getting hit.

Each time he cycled through his attacks, he became harder to hit. At first he was only hopping around in place, but as time went on, the clown began to jump in random directions and towards the end of it, he bounced around at such insane speed waving at his audience, he was leaving after-images. It looked like there were four of him and Berdly had to keep aiming for the 'newest' one. He even missed here and there because of this.

Then, after a torturous gauntlet of miraculously evaded attack patterns, one more time, Kris had the two of them wind their arms around his and together, he positioned himself in a particular place pretty close to the very centre, with very little necessity to move to counteract the ground's movements. Jevil summoned a cannon, slid inside, and it shot him downwards. With an insane and impossible to follow speed, he was torpedoed down to them and bounced off the poles and the walls, almost crashing into them about a dozen times within three seconds. "This is it! Finish him!"

Then, when they repeated their routine one last time, it happened, at last it happened. When he was still recovering from one of Ralsei's last magazines, the clown sighed, pulled his head back into his shoulders and clapped. "BRAVO! BRAVO! YOUR STRENGTH AND SPEED NEVER DISAPPOINTS, LIGHTNERS. A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR THE LIGHTNERS!", he shouted upwards.

And louder than ever before, the people cheered and the blurred rush of clapping hands drowned out the already loud music. With a few jumps, the clown came closer until he was within a few metres from the completely exhausted teenagers.

Still heaving heavily from running for his life from all the double-sized explosions, Kris looked up while still on his knees. "Jevil. Will you now please tell us where Pilot is?"

Jevil raised one finger, now that he was able to with yellow, five-digit gloves. "WHY FRET ABOUT A PILOT WHEN THERE ARE GREATER THREATS AHEAD?"

Between breaths, he interrupted him. "Is this - is this about the Queen?"

"THE KNIGHT WON'T REST FOR YOUR COMFORT. MUCH LESS NOW THAT THE RULES CHANGED."

"Rules?"

"WITH DIFFERENT MEDIUMS COME DIFFERENT RULES. A USURPER HAS TAKEN THE SPOTLIGHT, AND NOW THAT SHE KNOWS, SHE PLANS TO USE THIS FOR HER GAIN. THE 'QUEEN' IS NOT ALONE IN HER LITTLE GAME, AND ONCE SHE DISCOVERS THIS, SHE WILL FEAR UPHEAVAL. WITH EACH JOURNEY, THE KNIGHT'S EFFORTS TO THWART YOU WILL GROW EVER GREATER. LIGHTNERS, WILL YOU FACE - ANY - ENEMY THAT MAKES THEIR MOVE?"

He laughed. "NONETHELESS, A MISCHIEF-MISCHIEF - A CHAOS-CHAOS! LIGHTNERS, FROM WITHIN THE THREADS OF YOUR TALE! TAKE ME AND GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT!" He shrank and vanished. "METAMORPHOSIS!" And right where he did, a box appeared.

They came closer and opened it. Within it were two pistols. Revolvers in Jandsome's blue-black colours with bells in the same places as the giant ones Jevil used on them throughout their battle. Berdly took one in his hand. They were a perfect fit. "Hm..." He took both and aimed them at a random place on the ground.

A slightly different-looking reticle appeared where he was aiming them, along with the circles he expected. When he pulled the triggers though, it didn't fire homing bullets like his usual pistols did. Instead, like with Jevil's, each revolver had a flag peek out that read 'Bang!' on it, and after that, the earth where Berdly was aiming, began to bloat and then explode. It appeared that the clown had given Berdly a pair of clown pistols, like his own.

"Well...that was something." Berdly was still recovering, but still, he called after Kris and Ralsei, who were already on their way back outside. "Wait, Kris!"

They stopped and turned around to wait for him to catch up. "Look. Whenever we talked about Jevil up until just now...I didn't expect...whatever this was." Ralsei smiled patiently. Kris just stared at him. "I didn't know that...look. You know what? I'm sorry? I should have listened. I just didn't know this was what I was getting us into, okay?"

Kris continued to stare at him for a few seconds, then smiled. "Okay." 'Okay'. That was all he had to say. Then he turned around and walked outside with the prince.

Berdly walked along with them. Jandsome and Janice weren't here, at least not right behind the suddenly nonexistent concrete wall that blocked off their only way out before. "But uh, Kris. How did you even do this?"

"Do what?"

"You know...the dodging thing. It feels like a miracle that we got through this, just like you said with Susie. But it also feels like...did you know what attacks were coming somehow?"

He shrugged. "No. Intuition. I'm just good at this." Of course, that was a lie and the only reason Berdly believed it, was that he would have been less willing to believe the truth, had Kris tried to tell him about invisible lights that turned back time. In truth, they did this fight over, and over, and over, and over again. Each time, they died, he landed in the dark void he ended up in so many times on their last run-in with Jevil.

Over and over, he went through all his attacks again and again until he could dodge them all flawlessly. The very last one was particularly bad, as it was impossible to dodge, Jevil as a cannonball was just too fast to adapt. To get past this attack, he had to repeat the entire fight again and again just to try out one place to stand in, until he eventually did find one that wasn't in the clown's path.

All he could think of now though, was that it was over. The moment they were outside and saw that the two oversized humans and Berdly's sister were all right, he rushed back inside to touch the light. "Hey, Kris! You coming?"

He rushed outside, and about at the same time as him catching up, both groups met each other half-way. "Any insights?" With sharp movements in her arms and legs, Janice marched to the three younger ones and grabbed Berdly and Kris by the shoulders, her grip on each one so stiff it was painful. "Did he say anything that brought us closer to him? Please!" All three exchanged looks and eventually shook their heads at the desperate woman. "No...anything! He must have said something!"

Kris was the one that put what they were all thinking into words. "He talked about other things. Things he already talked about before Pilot left."

The prince was bummed out over their lack of results. "I'm sorry, we tried, but..."

In his usual duckwalk, the jester followed the others and stepped between both parties before the torn woman had a chance to vent her frustrations on those teenagers. "Now now, no need for despair. Perhaps he is not in this city after all. Perhaps he went home. Perhaps if you return home, he will be there waiting for you. Let us help the lightn-"

Janice pushed off the hand the jester had placed on her arm and screamed. "No!" She shot him a deadly glare. He could tell from the expression on her face that she was near tears.

"Janice..."

With a shaky voice, she stormed off for just enough distance that she could turn her back on the others. "I am not abandoning him. If there is no other way..." They followed her to better hear her, but she ignored them and stared at the ground, still leading Pluma by the hand. "If there is no other way to find out where he went, I will go ask the Dealmaker. He will know."

When she spoke that name, Jandsome shook. Whatever this was, it seriously bothered the suddenly stammering jester. "No. No, no you can't."

"I will pay any price if he can lead me back to Pilot. If there is anyone who can, it's him."

"Please, overthink this! We will find another way."

While lowered down, he snuck closer to grab her and pull her back by the elbow gain. With an unexpected force, she ripped herself off of his grasp. "My mind's made up!" She faced them all, now indeed with tears running down her eyes. "Come with me if you must, but I am going to the Dealmaker with or without you!" With this, she stormed off again. This time without stopping.

They had no choice but to follow her. Even the three that had no idea who or what the Dealmaker was, had a bad feeling considering the jester's worries and Janice not mentioning him until she had nothing else left.


	10. Don't Deal with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Janice is out of patience and is about to make a fatal mistake that brings destruction to the entire city.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 10

Don't Deal with the Devil

* * *

An eerie silence hung over everyone. Without a word and through moving masses of strangers, Kris, Berdly, Jandsome and Ralsei kept an eye out for the cold shoulder of the furious human woman that led Berdly's confused sister by the hand, straight through the most crowded area within the carnival back to the centre. And this silence loomed over them all the way up.

Floor after floor, they ascended the car park to the very top level of the inner city, where for once, there were no 'moons' shining down on them, just the darkness of the night sky. Berdly tried several times to talk to Jandsome in hopes of finding out more about this 'Dealmaker' they were visiting, but with no luck. Ever since Janice's outburst, he refused to say a word.

Up here, they approached the wall. Only that up here, it wasn't a wall. That entire part of the upper city was boxed in completely. Even with a helicopter, it would have been impossible to enter. The only entrance they knew of at this point, was the one they were heading to right now. They were closing in on a solid gate so large, the upper end of it almost reached the top of the metal box.

At both sides, citizens stood in black, modern combat uniforms. Each one having a cutting-edge two-handed rifle in his hands, more pistols in holsters in various places on their clothing, as well as a taser, a club, and a little radio to communicate with others. On both sides of the gate, turrets were built that immediately aimed at Janice and the others, too. And they immediately had the attention of those heavily armed guards, too.

In fact, in spite of none of them looking like they were about to attack anyone, all the armed uniforms pointed their weapons at them. None of them made an effort to fire though, until Janice was only a few metres away from the gate. That was when one man, the only one not pointing a gun at them, spoke up. "State your name and business."

"I want to speak to the Dealmaker."

The security guards exchanged looks while the one that had spoken to her grabbed his radio to repeat what she said to the person on the other end. After listening to said person, he told Janice and the others to stay put. They all did. For quite a while.

Then, in the distance, on the clean pavement behind the thickly barred and barely at all see-through gate, someone came along swinging his cane by the curved top. It was a monster, with four fingers on each hand, but not a brawler. A goat, the same kind of black goat with glowing eyes and mouth as Ralsei, except he was an adult.

The smiling stranger sported a snow-white tuxedo with light blue being the only colour he chose to complement it and with pentagrams and reversed crosses decorating his attire here and there. As soon as he was close enough to clearly see the six of them, he spread his arms. "Well if this is not a welcome sight." He slapped one of the security guards on his side of the wall with his cane. "What are you ruffians doing, keeping her out of here? Don't you see that this is Janice? THE Janice!"

He came closer to the gate and bowed. "Janice, my friend, do come in. You look downright devastated, what is wrong? Please, my apologies for this indecency." He twitched slightly. "I will make sure that those responsible for it are held to account."

The banging of pieces of metal sliding and shifting against other metal surfaces could be heard from within the wall, and slowly, the gate opened for the six of them enter a large square, with black bricks several metres wide and half a foot between them, but completely clean. No syringes or pieces of dirt or piles of dust.

"Please, come in, come in! Your friends as well. Those are your friends, am I correct?"

Janice only turned her head slightly, not nearly enough to look back at any of them. "Something of that sort. Three of them are lightners who promised to help me." She emphasized that last part and then walked further inside. "I'm not so sure if they're intent to keep it." Berdly's sister, still carried by the human-looking darkner, looked back at Kris and the others with concern.

She passed the strange man, who waited for the others to come closer. When Janice's entourage was close enough, he raised a finger. "Say, one of the lightners among you wouldn't happen to go by the name 'Kris', would he?" The 'man' in question faced the Dealmaker and came closer. "You?" He nodded. "Aha! That explains one thing. But where are my manners." He shook Kris' hand. "Luxon's my name. Samuel Luxon. But you can call me Sam, if you'd like to."

This was perhaps the best time to bring it up, now that Kris had the stranger's attention. There was something on his mind and he had better bring it up now than later. "Asriel? Is that you?"

The black goat raised one eyebrow. "I'm sorry, who?"

"Asriel."

"I'm afraid I'm not sure whether I follow."

"It's his brother." Berdly came closer and inserted himself in their conversation. "He has a big brother and you sort of sound like him." He didn't look like his brother, Kris would have recognized the facial features at once. And his mannerisms were completely different as well, but the voice was the exact same.

That only widened the stranger's smile. "Interesting. On a more timely occasion, you HAVE to tell me all about this 'Asriel'. But where are my manners." He sped a little ahead to walk backwards right in front of Janice. "It has been so long since you last came to visit me, what gives me the honor? Where is your handsome companion anyway? Isn't it your anniversary any day now? In case we don't meet then, I will say Mazel Tov to that right now."

"He's gone, Samuel." They stopped in the middle of the square. "He's just gone and I don't know where he went." The human woman of their group saying this halted everyone in their motion and nothing was said for a few moments.

That was, until the Dealmaker shot her a wink and began dancing a little half-circle with his cane. "Hm. I see. Then I presume the reason for your visit is that you are trying to find him." Janice nodded. "A pity to only come at such a sad occasion, but please, no need to fret. Even such troubles can be fixed. For a price, of course."

Berdly couldn't help but notice the common theme between the 'deals', the mans horns and the symbols. "The price is going to be thirty silver shekels, isn't it."

"Of course not." Samuel placed one hand with stretched-out fingers on his chest and shook his head. "I don't deal in 'shekels'."

"Sure you don't, Samael."

"I deal only in things that money can't buy. For everything else, I have employees. Speaking of employees, let's not waste any more time out here." He paced ahead towards a giant building that filled out the entire height of the curved, lengthy metal box that surrounded them, almost its entire width, and went on and on and on along the one road to its side.

Samuel reached around with his arm. "Welcome to my own part of the city. The true upper city. Where only the rich and famous of Canyon City live. No need to be so hesitant, my friends. Everyone who lives here has made their deals with me, and as you can attest to yourselves, they are all safe and sound right now, are they not?"

"They all made deals with you?" In the distance, people did move about, all dressed in fancy clothing. Dressed in only the finest of suits and the most brightly glittering dresses and shawls. Most of them were walking back and forth between their lengthy, expensive-looking cars all operated by chauffeurs, and the building that Janice, Samuel and the rest were approaching.

"Of course. They had to. When our new mayor began expropriating property, the real estate prices dropped to nigh-zero and I bought everything from right outside town hall all the way to the cleaners and had it walled off. The richest of the city, who wield the money all citizens work to make, rather than putting their money towards something to stop Don Gatore, took the path of least resistance. They made a deal with him, and one with me. They keep their money out of the mayor's hair, and his broader circle of spiky friends leave their businesses alone - for now. As for me, they get to live here, in the safety of my part of town, with response teams on their payroll guarding every entrance, far away from all the qualms outside. And of course not a single one of those tasteless ruffians anywhere near where they could..."

He let out a comically exaggerated gasp. "...lightners forbid - see them!"

Something about this didn't sit right with the bird. "And what do you get out of this?"

Samuel chuckled. "I can offer a person whatever they desire. And yet everyone who considers making such a deal with me, thinks twice about doing so. There is a reason for that. I never tell what the price is. Not until I come to collect. It isn't even set in stone half the time. Of course, once I do, you will quickly know what price you paid by virtue of losing it. But enough of the seriousness of business, please, enjoy yourselves."

They began to ascend set of stairs even wider than those in front of the public building on one of the squares in the outer city. With shiny, white pillars dressed in decorative bands of gold. The building itself, a colossal structure that reached all the way to the metal cover at the top, decorated with neon signs all around the windowless outer wall, depicting a range of symbols that would share themes with the different kinds of establishments Samuel would go on to say that this building contains.

"Welcome to my humble little establishment. The Dealmaker's Den. Hotel? Restaurant? Opera house? Casino? Spa? It has everything, it is whatever you want it to be."

The doors swung open and made way for a reception hall that was as big as they expected it to be from the outside size. The floor was covered in square-shaped tiles of ceramic almost as large as the tiles outside. Their colour took turns between black and gold. The pattern was broken towards the middle to make way for a giant ornate pentagram, facing the exit with a single point and from there, extending a long blue arrow that reached all the way to the central front door.

Through wide open sets of doors to the far left and the far right, they could see that the walls in the next room were as white as they were here. The light in the hall came from intricate, golden chandeliers that hung off the ceiling. From all the way on the left to all the way on the right, spun a counter with several monsters that were approached by guests, both ones that seemed to be leaving, as well as ones that just got here.

In sync with Jandsome, who mirrored his movements, the black goat slid along the floor all the way to the centre, made a pirouette and waved at the employees at the reception. "Right hand's badges for her and her entourage." With another swing, he turned to Kris and the others to bow and gesture to the doors on the right. "Indulge yourselves all you wish, drinks are on the house."

One of the people he spoke to, opened up a part of the table and went to Janice to pin a badge onto her coat with a strange symbol on it consisting of ten circles. He brought more of them to pin them onto everyone else as well. Kris had his pinned to his cape since it wouldn't fit onto metal plates that way. Behind those doors that Samuel led them through, was a hall much, much larger in all directions than the reception.

Most of it was full of tables, at which sat people with only the smoothest suits, the most extravagantly tailored dresses and the most gemstone-laden jewelry hanging off the necks of the women. Animated plastic Monsters with stuck-on twirled mustaches carried trays back and forth between the hall and one of the doors in the back. Further into the hall, was a lowered area divided into several heights.

A piano, a tuba, a bass, entire rows of saxophones and trumpets, a drum set, an entire orchestra, in fact there was twice as much of everything playing down there. Behind it was a stage. Two monsters in snow-white suits just like Samuel's stood at the microphone and sang a duet, with female dancers in provocative dresses raising their legs in a synchronous dance.

Above them, connected to the ground only through a very narrow, spiral set of stairs, hung a partial upper floor - or an indoor balcony - with railing separating it from the rest of the hall. "Please, a few spare tables for my new friends." He clapped his hands and a few staff members followed up on his orders, leaving through the same door in the back they usually came from, to later return in pairs with tables.

Janice looked down and reassured herself that she had one of those badges on, before she put down Pluma to stay with Kris, Ralsei and Berdly. She left to head to a counter that spanned the wall to the right, with endless rows bottles with all sorts of alcoholic beverages. "I need a drink." She did as she implied. At the counter, she ordered several glasses of some mixed drink Kris and Berdly wouldn't have recognized.

The jester snuck after her to take a seat right next to her. She had calmed down just a bit, and her loosening up under the effects of alcohol might have given him a chance to talk her out of this. "You should overthink your decision on this." Janice didn't dignify him with a reaction. She just stared at the bottles in the back and occasionally took a sip from her glass. "I am certain we will find a way without going to such extremes, please, overthink it."

"Please, take a seat." Kris and Berdly didn't listen to much more of that conversation, as soon after that, staff arrived with their table and they were gestured to sit down by their very outgoing guest host. "Now then." Samuel rubbed his hands and leaned forward, resting his head on his hand and his elbows on the table. "Little human you must tell me more about this 'Asriel'."

Kris only gave him a blank stare. "Why? What do you want to know?"

"Everything! What does he do? What is his occupation? What does he spend his spare time with? What is his favourite colour? Leave nothing out, my curiosity for this beautiful template to my image cannot be sated."

"So are you like Ralsei?" Kris subtly pointed at his prince, who sat right next to him. "Does taking the hat off change your face?"

"This old thing?" The black goat ran his hand along the base of the white top hat on his right horn. "Indeed it does, but not long upon my creation, you lightners robbed me of my handsome face. I had rather not to unsettle my guests by showing them what was made of it. But enough about me, let's order you something to drink." He dismissively clapped his hands. "Howard?" One of the employees came along and stood straight with a piece of cloth hanging off his arm. "Would you please take my guests' orders?"

The border collie with a fake spiral mustache pulled out a little note block and a pen. Berdly shot Kris a slight grin and ordered a glass of the same drink Pilot had bought for him when he was bout to show him his real face. Ralsei soon ordered something very mild to drink as well. Kris took a little longer. "Do you have uh..."

"Anything you like."

"...how about a hot chocolate?"

"Tsk. Kris." Berdly couldn't suppress his grin and tipped his elbow against his classmate's chestplate. It wasn't like Berdly planned on drinking here, he was just being polite. Of course Kris had to be weird again, but at this point, instead of being embarrassed, Berdly found it funny.

The Dealmaker just leaned back in his chair and folded up his arms. With his glowing eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised he nodded to Howard. "You heard him. Hot chocolate it is." With this, the waiter nodded and went off to fetch them what was ordered, while Samuel went back to gazing at Kris. "But now do stop teasing me. I want to know every bit there is to know about this 'Asriel'."

Berdly humoured them and sat there occasionally pretending to sip at his drink while listening to Kris recall, until while their host fawned over what he was hearing, he began to get up. "Incredible. So he is an artist AND he seeks to attain knowledge beyond even what lightners comprehend. This man is getting more interesting by the second." When he saw Berdly standing up, he pointed towards a door way off to the side. "Uh, bathrooms are thataway."

"Thanks." He wasn't going to the bathroom, he just wanted something a little more interesting than to hear Kris AND Sam reminisce over what a great brother he had. He took a few steps in the direction Sam had pointed to, not to get to a bathroom, but to be a bit away from all the tables and give it all a good look.

Large, clean, expensively outfitted buildings, people dressed in fine clothing, a full orchestra worth of musicians, and all defenseless and yet untouched. Not even scary-looking bears like at the bottom level. Guessing by the circumstances and everything he had seen outside of here, he would have expected everyone to be on edge. He got that sense from the other visitors at the carnival. But they weren't. Why was everyone here so relaxed?

"Excuse me, good sir."

"Yes?"

Two plastic monsters, one in a smooth grey suit with a silver tie that had patterns made of of golden thread woven onto it and his presumed wife, a cockerspaniel of the same age, had come over to him with their wine glasses. "Me and dear Charlotte couldn't help but notice the most baffling choice of attire your acquaintances chose to pay us company with."

"Peculiar indeed." his wife added.

"You wouldn't mind my asking...Are you by chance here to prepare a performance? Have Janice and Mr. Luxon arranged for a new surprise play?"

He just raised an eyebrow at this suggestion. "No. I'm sorry to disappoint you. We aren't here as performers."

"No need for concern, but if I'm not imposing...why the armor and the robes? And this gentleman's attire?" He didn't gesture any particular way, but from how he was standing, it was clear he meant Jandsome, who was still sitting at the bar with Janice trying to convince her not to make the deal. Whatever this deal was.

"We're not from here. I'm not either, actually."

They both chuckled and covered their mouths slightly while doing so. "This is most certainly believable."

"I suppose this means you don't often get anyone coming here that isn't dressed for the occasion."

They both nodded at each other and at him. "True, true."

"Would you mind if I had a question of my own?"

They walked around to no longer watch the tables and the show with him, but to face him directly. "Of course."

"Everyone here's so relaxed. Aren't you the least bit worried?"

The two other guests were, for lack of a better word, perplexed. "What do you mean? Worried about what?"

"About the situation outside of this part of town?"

"What about it?"

"You know, the dust trade, the brawlers kicking people like you out of their homes and killing them, all of that?"

Both of them looked off to the side and held in what would have been loud laughter and took turns berating him with a wide smile. "What nonsense. Completely exaggerated hogwash that is. Only the uneducated think brawlers are an actual problem."

"Lazy good-for-nothings, all of them. Backward and worthless. They are out there and not in here for a reason."

"I wouldn't believe any of it if I were you."

Berdly snorted through his nostrils. "Really now?"

Then, Charlotte acted up and waved her hand out of excitement while slightly bouncing up and down. "Wait, are you one of them? Is that where you are from? Are you backwater hillbillies?" Her smile grew wider and wider, as did her husband's.

Both of their noses began pointing further and further up, as did the corners of their mouths. "Is that what you are, a hillbilly from way outback?" He began swinging his elbow about in a mocking fashion. "Howdy, fellash, mah names Dahnald Tarrington, and ahm real' miffed about thosh gersh dern brawlersh. Makesh me wanna tune mah banjo and beat mah wife who'sh alsho mah shishter!"

After this, he and his grinning wife began to inch closer and closer to Berdly with the sides of their faces practically pressed onto each other.

Then they separated and Charlotte had another brilliant epiphany. "Oh wait, wait! Maybe he's not a hillbilly, maybe he's one of those other ones, you know, the chavs."

The gentleman followed up on her suggestion and stared at Berdly again while getting in character. "Is that what you're really about? Oy mayte, me an' me moytes go'a pick our knoives ou'a the bin and stab us some broolas, innit?"

He listened to their impressions with increasingly narrow eyes, and once they were done, he slightly shook his head. "I really think you're out of touch here."

"Oh, what nonsense, what brawlers have you ever met?"

He began counting all his encounters with them on his fingers and had to cycle through both hands once. They both waved away the points he made. "You must have gotten a false first impression of them. I am sure most brawlers are perfectly nice people, those are just some particularly bad eggs you ran into. I'm sure it's not even as over-the-top as you say. After all, if they were all out to kill us like you make it sound, how is any of this possible?"

The other guest gestured to mean everything around them. "We are all perfectly fine, are we not?"

Now, Berdly was the one that started to smile. "I think that has less to do with brawlers being nice and more with that giant wall and security personnel keeping them away from you." And his grin only widened from here. "You don't believe anything you just said, do you? If you did, you wouldn't be hiding behind a wall."

He had ceased to care about showing them good tone or what they thought of him when they were accusing him of being a range of cartoon stereotypes. "You'd go out there or let them in. And yet here we are and I can't spot anyone who looks like one. Can you?"

After that, the couple just exchanged a glance and then turned back to him with very upset looks on their faces. "All right, those jokes and backward antics were amusing the first three times, but we are growing bored. Go practise the banjo or whatever it is you people do."

Without another word, they straight up walked away. He was planning on trying to keep a formal or agreeable tone with those people originally, but something about how they dismissed stuff he saw with his own eyes made him cease to care about what they thought of him. They were sticking out like a sore thumb as it was anyway.

If the other guests were all like these two, he didn't see any hope of getting any useful information out of them and went back to the table Sam sat at. A good time, since Janice and Jandsome were coming back as well. From the looks of it, the stewardess was no more persuaded not to go through with it, than she was before.

"Ah, how nice of you to join us." the gleeful black goat remarked. "And? Have we made a decision?" She nodded. "Please, don't let me stop you, elaborate on what our business relates to."

"Pilot is gone."

The Dealmaker nodded. "You mentioned as much."

"I need to find him, and I have nowhere else to turn to."

Sam had to laugh. "I see now." He leaned back, closed his eyes and nodded. "You are in luck. He is here. In this very city, but he is in hiding. He fears something that might devastate him. The only way to find him, is to force him out of hiding. You need to threaten him with something even worse if he doesn't reveal himself, than what might happen if he does. I could indeed help you with that."

Slowly, he extended his open hand, ready for the handshake both she and Jandsome seemed to dread so much. "I caution you to think about your decision. Once you shake this hand, our deal is sealed."

Both tall humans swallowed. "Janice!" For a brief moment, the jester was speaking in Pilot's voice and bit his tongue upon realizing he did.

He placed a hand on Janice's and began speaking in a more serious manner than Kris and everyone else save for Berdly had seen him before. "You don't have to do this. Come with me instead. I'm willing to show you something that could resolve all of this. I'm sorry for everything up to now, but I can show you where he is." She stared back at him, frozen in motion. "You just have to trust me."

They continued to stare at each other, making everyone else around them almost as tense as they were. Eventually, the stewardess pulled her hand away and freed it from the jester's grip. "Take your hands off of me you, useless clown. You were no help up to this point, whatever you have in store for me next will leave us just as empty handed." She sat back and paused for a while, long enough for the other human adult to calm down and sit back as well.

Then she surged right to the Dealmaker's hand with hers and shook it before the jester or anyone else could do something. "No, no, no, no, no!" He tried to get up and reach for her, but he didn't get there in time. The moment her and the Dealmaker's hands met, Samuel's face lowered itself and the wrinkling between his eyes made his grin look more and more sinister. B

erdly and Pilot both were overcome with too much of a cold shower to move. Even if Pilot mustered the courage and took off that stupid cap of his right now, it was too late. The deal was sealed. Kris was so swept up in something he lacked the context to understand, he didn't notice he still had foam from his hot chocolate on his mouth, which Ralsei pulled out a tissue to wipe off.

"Pleasure doing business with you." Without further ado, Mr. Luxon got up and left. " If you excuse me, I intend for my end of this deal to be kept and have to make a few phone calls to ensure that it is."

The entire time, Jandsome just sat there, bracing himself to get up, watching Samuel leave. Once he was gone, he got up himself to go after him. From how he was checking around the corner once he reached the doorframe, it appeared that he didn't intend for Samuel to notice he was being followed.

"Berdly?" The bird snapped out of following the jester's movements when he was spoken to from the side by the prince. "What's wrong?", Ralsei asked.

He shook his head. "Oh, it's nothing." He could tell that was not convincing enough to fool Kris' friend. "Either way, hey..." He tipped Janice's shoulder. The poor woman had just been staring down at the table ever since he shook hands with Samuel. She was very hesitant to even react to him, even though eventually, she did. "...so what's going to happen next?"

She looked back down at the half-empty wine glasses. "I don't know. A miracle, I hope. Nothing short of a miracle is worth making a deal with the Dealmaker."

Outside, Pilot tailed Samuel and found him wandering around the corner to the extremely narrow path at the right side of the building between it and the wall of the metal 'box' they were in. Occasionally, when the Dealmaker wasn't looking, he'd peer around the corner, only to find Samuel doing exactly what he announced he would do. He was too far away to hear what Sam was talking about each time, but he really did approach an old-fashioned public phone.

He picked up the head piece and slid coins in before operating the circular dial to make a phone call. Multiple times. Right when he hung the phone back on the hook though, he removed the massive lock off one of the outside storage closets and pulled out two sealed briefcases before dispersing in a black cloud and vanishing. Pilot figured that he must have been spotted without noticing it himself.

Until Pilot returned, the rest was just awkwardly sitting there, occasionally sipping at their drinks, save for Janice. She ordered two more and in the time it took Kris to finish the rest of his hot chocolate. She downed them both and already asked for the next one, by the time the jester arrived.

When he sat down though, something happened. Suddenly, the musicians stopped playing and the dancers stepped aside. All the guests applauded Samuel as he suddenly appeared on stage to bow to them a few times.

After that, he stepped right to the singer and pulled the microphone out of his hands. "Thank you, thank you. Please, hold your applause. Ladies, gentlemen, my friends. What are you doing, only sitting there? You should always remember how lucky you are for being here. Why don't we all get up and dance, celebrate every day, every hour, every minute, as if it was your last. After all, nothing stops us from celebrating just as much tomorrow, does it?"

He clapped his hands together once. "That said, why don't you skip ahead in your program to something more slow. To ease our fine attendants into it." Upon seeing most of the people here remain seated, he began clapping his hands a little more eagerly. "Come on, come on, no need to be shy. There is plenty of room for everyone to dance."

Slowly, but surely, the couples got up from their tables to head to the areas in the hall that weren't covered in tables and chairs to match the rhythm of the music with elaborate ballroom dances. The moment he had assured himself that all the guests save for Kris and the others had gotten up to join the spontaneous ball in pairs of two, he left the stage again to head back to the guests that had his real attention.

"So what happens now?"

Sam smiled down at the curious young human. "Carpe Diem. As you can see, they are enjoying these moments as if they were their last. After all, even behind the safety of solid metal wall and a response team ready to dispose of every threat, the two things these fine ladies' and gentlemen's continued survival depends on, nobody lives forever."

Small black clouds formed in his hands and pulled together before vanishing and leaving behind two little contraptions. One in each of the Dealmaker's hands. They were nothing more than a grip and a button extending out of the top. Positioned for Sam to press them with his thumbs.

Kris pointed at them. "What are these?"

For a moment, Samuel jokingly pretended not to know what he was referring to. "Oh, these?" He grinned again. "Why don't we find out?" He pressed one of them, and with a terrifying thunder, the ground shook so much, the force ripped several chandeliers off the ceiling and shattered their lamps. Most of the guests stumbled and fell onto the floor.

Kris, Berdly and the rest of their party were desperate to grab onto the table and their chairs. In Berdly's case, it did nothing to stop him from falling over. "What was that?"

The only one who stood upright by the end of it, in fact he didn't so much as flinch, was Samuel. "The response team's headquarter, after I had all security gather up inside it. Now they're all dead, so if anything happened to the wall, we would all be defenseless." Then he raised the hand with what they could only assume was a second detonator to a second bomb like the one that had just gone off.

Kris, Berdly, Jandsome and Ralsei called for him not to, when he pressed the button on the other device. Pluma grabbed hold of Janice more tightly and the others were wise enough to not let it take them so much by surprise either and braced themselves for the next earthquake. Once the rumble of settling concrete or plastic and the clangour of shattering glass settled down, he continued. "And there goes the wall. Let's take a walk outside to see the results, shall we?"

Before this still calm and downright amused goat could walk too far though, the jester grabbed his arm with an unseen force. "Just what are you planning on doing?"

The smile was fading from the Dealmaker's face and made way for a tired, dismissive expression with his eyes barely open. "Collecting debts and keeping my part of a bargain." The same way he had summoned those detonators, he summoned a painted-white revolver which he pointed at Jandsome's head. "I would let go if I were you."

The jester's immediate reaction was to point at the ceiling, or rather at the little holes in it after bits of it had come down. "Wait! What is that?" And just like he hoped, Sam joined Jandsome in looking away from his gun and at the ceiling. "Ha! Point that thing at me all you want. It's only a..." They both resumed looking at each other, and at what Sam was pointing at him.

Only that to the jester's horror, it wasn't a banana. The Dealmaker finished his sentence. "...a gun. Those parlour tricks don't work on me I'm afraid. Now if you would be so kind as to follow me outside, I still owe your downright devastated friend a service and I intend to provide it."

"Is this it?" Janice had calmed down to no longer keep Pluma in a hug to shield her from possible debris and had placed her back on the ground. "Is this the part where you show me where Pilot is?"

"It is part of it. You made a deal, knowing anything could happen. A little more patience won't hurt. Are you or are you not willing to accept any price?"

The stewardess took a deep breath and got up all the way. "Of course." She followed him on his way outside. Jandsome tried to reach for her, but before he could, cuffs formed round his hands and pulled them back onto the table that had now fallen onto its side. The same happened for Berdly and the others. By the time the cuffs undid themselves, Sam and Janice had already left. The moment they were able to, the four of them ran after them. The upset guests only slowly followed.

On the square outside, the Dealmaker summoned his pistol again and vanished. Further ahead, just outside the crater located where the gate they entered through once was, one of the security guards was crawling and trying to make sense of what happened around him. Crawling, because he had already lost a leg in the explosion. Samuel reappeared right above the eagle, pulled him up by his shoulder and flipped the helmet off with his gun.

Once his head wasn't covered, he pressed the barrel of his revolver against the back of the confused man's skull and pulled the trigger several times.

"What is the meaning of this?" By the time Sam was back near Janice and Pluma, with the rest of the party catching up, some of the other guests had made it outside as well. One of them, the cockerspaniel from before, was now very worked up. "Did you just shoot this man?"

Sam shrugged. "Well I would have preferred incinerating him, but everyone in this city insists on those glorified toys. So who am I to break the trend?"

When screaming, the pitch of his guest's voice took on an almost comical height. "I demand that you explain yourself at once!"

The Dealmaker tilted his head to the side. As usual, his top hat didn't move the least bit. "Well this is certainly a tone to choose, is it not?" The dog didn't keep his anger for long, as suddenly, his former guest host appeared in front of him, grabbed him by the throat with one hand and lifted him off his feet.

"Don't think I didn't overhear your little conversation with my avian friend by the way. You should be ashamed of yourself. A lightner takes valuable time out of his day to come all the way here from the light world and bring the concerns of the common folk to your attention. And you thank him with mockery. I might as well indulge myself." Black flames shot out of the ground and engulfed the poor man. "Burn for your sins. BURN!"

His guest was no longer just struggling. He was screaming in pain, calling for help to no avail. His facial features blurred and the stinging stench of molten plastic filled the air. By the time the fire stopped and the presumably dead monster was dropped onto the ground, his face, was completely unrecognizable.

Once Sam was done with him though, there was no time to confront him about what he had done either. Right at the blasted-open hole, a little crowd was gathering. Lizards and sharks with freakish neon hairstyles, covered in black leather and chains of shiny silver spikes and metal plates. The one thing those well-dressed ladies and gentlemen didn't expect to make it here.

"Ah, and here comes our guest of honor." Samuel wandered across the square. A lot of the plates that made it so smooth had sprung out, revealing the rough connecting pieces below. The ground was still shaking. Not continuously, it had a rhythm to it. It came in steps. Something was coming. Someone big was coming right around the corner of what was left of the wall.

It was an alligator. In spite of his anatomy forcing him to hunch forward with his head and neck, he had an even more imposing height than that of Jandsome and Janice, and was monstrously wide. To describe his arms as 'tires' would have been an understatement. With two giant belts swung over his shoulders, one made of fifty-nine caliber bullets, one simply made of a chain of solid steel plates hanging off each side.

His chest was dressed in something resembling a suit jacket, shirt and tie, but loosely tailored to his size and with his sleeves ripped right off with sheer force. And even through his trousers, you could see that there was not one inch on his arms, legs and chest that wasn't covered in muscle mass. Metal rings hung on his arms, to which giant gatling guns were attached, that were longer than his arms, along with several-finger-long triggers in position for his hands to pull them.

And he just carried their weight with ease, along with the weight of the boxes of ammunition that hung off the backs of his weapons. Berdly recognized this person from the picture the infopage had shown him and a long, long discarded action figure he must have come from. It was Don Gatore, the mayor of Canyon City.

"Mr. Gatore! How nice of you to accept my invitation."

All the more with him coming closer, the Don's steps were so heavy, the ground shook with every one of them. He made his way to meet with Sam and Janice. The rest was right behind them.

The moment this titan opened his mouth, Berdly and Kris couldn't just hear him talking. He had such a loud, deep, penetrating voice, they could feel him talking down to their bones. "I AM OUT OF PATIENCE, LUXON. YOU HAVE HELD ONTO THE BEST PART OF TOWN FOR LONG ENOUGH! DEANDRE! THE NOTES!"

A normal-sized eel with bright green hair styled to hang off to the right side of his head, dressed in a leather duster, brought the mayor a large stack of paper. "HERE WE ARE, LUXON. NOTES OF EXPROPRIATION WITHOUT COMPENSATION FOR THAT PLACE..."

He pointed at a tall single-family house, opposite from the club. "...AND THAT ONE, AND THAT ONE, AND THAT ONE, NOTES FOR EVERY PIECE OF PROPERTY YOU HOLD! ALL BUT SIGNED BY THEIR NEW OWNER. PROCESSED AND DECLARED SOUND, VALID AND LEGAL BY THREE SEPARATE STATE OFFICES!"

The black goat looked up at the mayor, neither shocked nor surprised. "Now now, don't think I don't see through this. This does seem a little too convenient and one-sided for me to believe diligent and impartial officials just waved this through. Were the officials that signed off on this held at gunpoint or were they brawlers to begin with?"

His understanding on how this worked only further annoyed the enormous reptiles. He grunted. "HALF AND HALF. WHATEVER, IT'S OFFICIAL. EVERY SINGLE HOUSE AND GARDEN, YOUR WHOLE CLUB, EVERY PIECE OF PROPERTY DOWN TO THE LOWEST LEVEL INCLUDED IN YOUR LITTLE BOX NOW ALL BELONGS TO...UH..." He looked around, until he eventually just pulled the eel closer. "THIS GUY! IT ALL BELONGS TO THIS GUY NOW. JUST SIGN 'EM ALL WITH YOUR NAME AND THEY'RE YOURS."

His secretary tried to laugh off his awkward surprise over his newfound wealth. "Ah, gee. Thanks boss."

He turned back at the short monsters in front of him. "AND AS FOR OUR DEAL."

Samuel raised his open arms. "Oh you will love your end of it! That's where this fine lady comes in." He placed his hands on Janice's shoulders. "Those lightners you're after, those right behind me? Chances are if you go after them now, they'll find some way to escape. This lady right here makes for the perfect trophy for your brave conquest of my district, does she not? Not just that, but she is the perfect bait. Take her with you, find a nice and empty cell to lock her up in, leave her alone otherwise, and not only is your debt with me settled, but the lightners will follow her into any trap, ambush or dead end you set up for them. No need to scour the city. As long as you have her, you will always know where they're going."

He let go of the now terrified woman and went one step closer to the imposing alligator. "Well? Isn't this killing two birds with one stone for you? You're free of your debt AND you get a free piece of lightnerbait with a cherry on-top."

The mayor bore his teeth and stared into the Dealmaker's glowing eyes with one of his own. "WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?"

Berdly didn't want this to go any further as much as Jandsome did and tipped on his shoulder. Once he had the jester's attention, the only thing he whispered to him was "Smoke bomb." That was all that was needed for them to have a vague idea of what Berdly wanted. Kris and Ralsei understood it as well.

They memorized where Janice and Pluma were standing, and shortly thereafter, a smoke bomb appeared out of nowhere and went off just as fast. Everything was shrouded in a fog that burned in everyone's eyes. Jandsome and Berdly rushed right inside. The bird ran to where his sister was, grabbed her, and ran back.

The jester grabbed his girlfriend by her elbow and ran for it as well. They focused completely and utterly at running back through the smoke as quickly as they could and straight towards the club. Kris and Ralsei mostly only followed their direction. The Dealmaker's Den was big and had a lot of angles and places to hide and escape. Perfect to split up the army of brawlers that had gathered here by now.

They ran and ran and ran. After they gained a bit of distance though, the jester noticed something he neglected to pay attention to. Janice's arm was somehow slightly more muscular than he remembered it and once they got out of the fog, they all stopped and realized why.

Next to him stood not Janice, but a very smug, black goat. "I am flattered by your priorities, my disguised friend, but I believe the person you were going for is over there." Samuel pointed towards the impenetrable cloud that obscured everything that lay behind and within it. And in the distance, they could hear the shrill sound of Janice screaming for help off the top of her lungs.

"No! Janice!"

Before Pilot, now no longer changing his own voice, could run back, new shackles formed around his arms and bound him to the ground. The Dealmaker swung his index finger left and right. "Ah, ah, ah. Part of my service. Can't let you deny it." When they tried to raise their weapons, giant claws or teeth shot out of the ground all around them. Tendons of sinew grew out of the pavement to form several rings around the claws, holding them together.

They were trapped in a cage. While Pilot screamed at the suited man, what kind of 'service' this was supposed to be, the distracted Dealmaker just kept a look at the shiny-looking watch on his right arm. "Five, four, three, two, one. Okay, that's enough."

Janice's screams were already growing too distant to hear. The Don was hauling her off, just like Samuel had suggested. When it was too late, the teeth and the sinew evaporated into black clouds that rapidly diffused. By then, the smoke had cleared up a bit as well, leaving behind the sight of a growing crowd of countless brawlers that were now walking their way with their firearms loaded and ready to fire.

By the time the smoke cleared up enough for them to look for Janice, the Don was already marching away and with him went the sounds of the struggling and screaming woman. The swaths of brawlers he had come with were only very slowly approaching, if at all. "She's gone, Pilot." the caprine traitor cheered. "Too late, loverboy." He summoned a cane to support himself on and nodded the tall human's way.

And Berdly's.

"You were so scared and waited for so long. Now it's too late. The bad boy has your girl now. Oh, what's that?" He walked off to the side, where two guests were running down the one street to the side of his club. One of them was Charlotte, the wife of the citizen he had just burned to death. After realizing she was next, she figured to get out of here. Not that it did anything to save her, as Sam immediately appeared behind her back.

He held her head by the ear and executed her with two point blank shots to the back of her head, like he had done with that last security guard. The other fleeing guest met the same fate.

The brawlers were confident enough to take their time, but Kris, Berdly, Pilot and Ralsei couldn't stay in place. They ran back to the Dealmaker's Den, Berdly pulling his little sister by the hand. "Everyone! Back inside!" On their way, they herded the remaining survivors back through the entrance. And luckily enough for them, Pilot's voice seemed to be something they listened to. "With some walls covering some directions, we might be able to hold them off!"

The terrified mass of people rushed further through the foyer into the restaurant. When he noticed that they were stopping there, he called for them to keep going.

Once they had a moment of rest, Berdly, now furious for reasons not quite so obvious to Kris and Ralsei yet screamed: "Do something! Anything! Trip wires, mines, bear traps! These guys are out to kill us! Do anything it takes to keep them away!" With Ralsei pitching in with his idea of setting up stationary machine guns, the jester got to making things appear while they looked away.

When Berdly, Kris and Ralsei stood within the resturant, and then came back to look, it was all set up just as asked. All walls and pillars were connected with trip wires which were hooked up to rams that would crush anyone who broke through the partially boarded-up entrance and tripped over them. That was of course, unless they fell down onto the bear traps that covered every inch of the floor.

And he didn't forget the turrets Ralsei asked for, long chains of fifty caliber bullets set up to cover the entrance with fire if needed. Not much room for being careful and pacifying them left, but at this point, they were past pacifying and sparing as a priority. Surviving was more important.

Once their pursuers finally arrived, they were ready for them. The first one that entered immediately got caught in a bear trap and the prince was able to land several hits on him. As well as the two that dragged their friend back outside before any more could happen to him.

They made it. With little to no effort, they had set up a defense that bought them some time. At least they hoped as much. From what they could tell, the brawlers back ed off and stayed away for a while.

A silence settled on the air between them. For several minutes, they stayed there. Up and ready. Constantly on edge and expecting the next attack. Nothing of the sort happened though.

When the first of them were beginning to sigh over the moment of respite they had, the silence was broken right again by distant gunfire and screams. Only that this time, it came from behind them. Inside the building. "Go! I keep the exit clear!" Pilot told them. Already having wasted valuable seconds thinking about what to do, Berdly and the other two simply nodded and ran further inside, straight through the restaurant.

Berdly considered leaving Pluma with Pilot, but she was as much in danger as they all were either way. If she was with him, at least he always knew where she was. The very next hall further inside, connected to the restaurant through two double doors like the foyer, was a casino. Lines of shiny machines made for covers if they would need them. But here already, they found several dead guests. All of them lay on their stomachs with bullet holes in the backs of their heads.

Samuel. "He's inside." Of course barricading themselves wasn't going to keep out the one person that can just magically appear wherever he wanted. But upon following the trail of bodies and the screams, they actually did find him behind another set of double doors further ahead. In what looked like an indoor spa with a swimming pool.

More bodies littered the tiled floor and at the pool, they caught the culprit red-handed. He was holding a lion by the mane, who was swinging his claws at his soon-to-be murderer. "Stop!" Unarmed and with open hands, Ralsei got closer in an attempt to calm and dissuade the Dealmaker. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why?" Sam was already pressing his weapon against the panicked lion's head, but made it vanish when this question drew his attention away from what he was doing. "I thought this was obvious. I more or less told you when we first walked in here. But if you truly need to know, the reason is money. In a way. 'Business' would describe it more aptly."

"For a start, didn't you notice how quiet it got in here when those ruffians outside made it here with obvious intent to kill anyone they come across? Where did all my staff go?" He paused, and then acted as if the answer just occurred to him. "Oh, that's right. I seemed to have forgotten that UNLIKE ALL MY ESTEEMED GUESTS I actually moved all my employees out of harm's way."

"You see, most of the people here make their money off of other people's work. Their income is the blood and sweat of the people of the city, their subjects, you could say. And that is okay. In exchange for it comes a decision-making role. An obligation to act as a leader or a guide. A responsibility to put that income to use towards keeping their workers safe and in a condition to work."

He had let go of the lion, who was chained to the floor the same way Pilot was whenever Sam ran out of patience with him. "So then, when there was no reason to expect lightners to come to our aid, and the knight put an obviously hostile foreigner in the mayor's seat, when law and order was put in the hands of a criminal, what did my esteemed guests do? Did they hire lawyers and take this to court to fight it? Did they arm a militia to fight back against this homicidal despot? Did they put this money they make off the common man in ANY POSSIBLE WAY towards helping the common man? HUH!"

With an audibly painful strength, he grabbed his guest's mane again. "DID YOU? HUH?" He gave the desperate man very little time before interrupting the nods and stutters.

"No, no they didn't. The very first thing they did, was to come to me. LIKE RATS FLEEING A SINKING SHIP, THEY ALL CAME RUNNING TO ME! YOU ALL WOULD SOONER LEAVE YOUR SUBJECTS TO DIE AND MAKE A DEAL THE DEVIL HIMSELF TO SAVE YOUR SORRY HIDES THAN TO ONCE TAKE A STAND FOR THOSE WHO TRUSTED YOU! WHAT? YOU THOUGHT I WAS YOUR EASY WAY OUT? YOU THOUGHT YOUR MONEY WOULD PROTECT YOU FOREVER? YOU SIGNED YOUR DEATH WARRANTS THE MOMENT YOU SIGNED THOSE CONTRACTS!"

That was the point where he ignored any further pleas to spare at least this one person and just shot him dead right in front of them, with only a few metres of distance to Pluma. Berdly covered her sight, but she could still hear what happened.

Luckily, after that, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and calmed down again. When he did, he wiped possible dirt off of his hands. "Nonetheless, there is no need to feel sorry for them. I do admit, I am of course not demanding the same price from everyone. Janice is getting her wish and paid for it with her freedom. My guests wanted shelter from the common man's troubles, and paid for it with their lives."

Kris and Berdly both silently figured that this man was just crazy, but Ralsei was still trying to understand Sam's motives. "But why? Why did they have to pay with their lives?"

The Dealmaker chuckled. "There is a certain Karmic Retribution to life that transcends this realm. It transcends the dark world as a whole, perhaps all of creation. Bad decisions lead to bad outcomes. Short-term thinking leads to long-term disaster. Self-indulgence only worsens the situation for everyone involved in the long run." While he continued, a heat began filling the room, that nobody could really make out the source of.

They could hear a faint hissing or fizzing coming from somewhere behind him. "Sometimes, life isn't fair, and not everyone gets the bad outcomes their decision-making deserves, and in this case, I was happy to use my habits to help it along. Think of me what you will, but helping it along, bringing disaster to the self-indulgent, it feels a bit like a calling to me."

The heat came from the pool, the water was long boiling and evaporating. "In fact, I was so relieved to see you young fellows come here with such innocent minds by comparison. People here know so little about lightners, your world is so far removed from ours sometimes. I was worried if I met you, that you might go on a rampage and be even worse than the ruffians you fought. If you had, I would have had to kill you as well. Wouldn't you look at it, sometimes, life holds some positive surprises."

Once enough of the water was gone, black flames began to shoot out of the bottom of the pool and form a huge pillar that matched the pool's length and width. Berdly, Kris and Ralsei took a few steps back, but the Dealmaker didn't seem the least bit fazed by it. He was probably the reason it was happening. "And no need to worry about your friend Janice. If you make it to her, and I'm confident that you will, she will come out of this unharmed."

He walked backwards, right into the fire and could stand in it as though he was walking on water. He began to laugh in a shrill tone that didn't match Asriel's voice at all. He vanished in the fire and soon thereafter, so did the black flames. A few towels and a wooden bench had caught fire, but that was actual normal fire that Kris was rushing without a word to put out with a fire extinguisher he grabbed off a wall. The building was on fire, but at least the Dealmaker was now gone.


	11. The Antlers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dealmaker has vanished, but left a trail of destruction in his wake. And their means of escaping goads the mayor into escalating a long-lingering conflict.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 11

The Antlers

* * *

In a half-burnt spa filled with half-drenched plastic corpses, Kris Ralsei and Berdly remained in place dumbstruck over the antics and the exit of the same person that both owned this entire district but also willingly handed it over and murdered his own customers while he was at it. "You know, Berdly..." Kris slowed down quite a bit once he was done putting out the last few fires. "...I'm starting to think Pilot and Jandsome really are the same person."

Berdly couldn't resist swinging his head back a little before leaning in his classmate's direction. "Oh really? Whatever in the world makes you think that?"

"Well, Sam called him Pilot and he said he was disguised, and I always somehow had this feeling Jandsome never really wanted us to find Pilot. Actually, I always sort of suspected something like that earlier already."

Mostly while trying to keep Pluma from seeing all the bodies, Berdly began leading her back to the casino. "Oh really? Did you now?"

"I wasn't thinking about it too much, because I wasn't sure it was the case at all, but yes."

Berdly maintained his balancing act of maneuvering around all the bodies while trying to keep Pluma close and not looking at them. "Why don't we ask him that when we get back to hi-" He was cut off mid-sentence by a massive rumble that shook the building. "Oh what is it this time?"

Pluma cowered together in his arms. "Berdie! I'm scared!"

"You've got every reason to." he snapped back at her.

"Berdly..." Ralsei shook his head at him. "You're supposed to tell her that everything's going to be all right."

The bird screeched at Kris' delusional friend. "Does anything here seem all right to you? This is all about as far away from all right as I can think! I feel like crying for Mom and Dad like a little kid at this point, but they're off on an island across the ocean having tea and crumpets for all I know. Why, Kris! Why is all this happeni - what?" He outright fell over when the place shook up right again.

By the time he had gotten up and the four of them made it back to the empty restaurant, it all shook one more time. And this time, more strongly than before. Berdly realized why and pointed to one of the kitchen doors. "It came from there!" It wasn't quite as long-lasting as the earthquakes from the explosions earlier. Much more of a sudden shake, as if something was crashing against the wall on a grand scale.

As expected, even behind the doorframes, the kitchen was separated into multiple rooms filled with the utilities needed to supply the entire building's worth of guests.

Cracks along the pillars that lined the morbidly deformed outside wall, made it very clear that that outside wall wasn't supposed to be bent towards the inside the way it was. The cupboards above it were broken, their doors hanging off of what little was still intact enough to keep them there. The same cracks also went along the outside wall, which as they just noticed, didn't have any windows.

Sam must have planned to kill all his guests sooner or later from the very beginning. It figured that of course he wouldn't want there to be windows they could escape through. And after rushing from the first kitchen to the next, they noticed the pattern and quickly understood what was going on. Giant, dome-shaped inward dents were visible in various places.

"The wrecking ball!" Berdly shouted. "They're trying to tear this whole place down!" Now that they were expecting the next crash, it didn't take them so much by surprise when it came. They were prepared and made their way back into the hall fast enough. At the end of it, stood Jandsome with his hands on one of the two stationary weapons they had set up.

Several of the bear traps in the front room were missing and the rams hung down with blood on the solid front ends. The brawlers had continued to try to get in.

"You're hearing it too, aren't you?"

They all caught their breath when they stopped next to him. "We're feeling it. They're going to come from both sides. Even more if we just run further back."

Now with this voice back to normal, the way Berdly knew Pilot sounded when he wasn't pretending to be someone else, the hopeless jester spoke up. "This is it. We aren't going to make it out of here, are we?"

Out of the blue, Kris pointed right at him. "You're actually Pilot, aren't you?"

Berdly rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. "When I said 'when we get back to him', I meant when we're not two steps away from getting shot at from all sides."

They were all quiet for a moment, and in that time, the jester's shoulders gradually dropped, he sighed and took off his fool's cap, reverting his face and the colour of his skin to that of the man they were searching for all this time. He stepped away from the turret and sat down with his back to the inside of the doorframe. Pluma's face lit up and with a wide open beak, it only began to click then. "Scott! We found you! We finally found you! Now everything is going to be okay!"

Pilot was so deep in resignation, he didn't even bother to correct her on his name. Pluma latched onto his arm and he dismissively ruffled the feathers on her forehead. "Yes. Yes you found me. Not that it makes a difference now."

Kris pointed at the foolscap he had thrown onto the floor. "Does that thing have some kind of voice changer?"

For a moment, Berdly covered the side of his face with one hand. "No, it's because it..." Then he figured something out. While the voice changing thing was probably coming from this vague omnipotence Pilot had while wearing Jevil's cap... "Wait...it does! Kind of!" He walked up to the spiritless man and gave him a slight kick with the tip of his shoe. "Hey! We're not going to die here! Put that cap back on!"

For a moment, his attempt at rallying Pilot failed. "What do you mean?"

"Just do it!"

He obliged. "But why?"

"You said you can do basically anything with this cap right?"

Pilot stared at the much less shaken up bird, still with little idea of where he was going with this. "Yes...why?"

After Berdly explained to him what he wanted him to do, the runaway pilot nodded. The teenagers and Pluma took quite a few steps back. What followed was going to be very loud. With a voice so intense it shook them up, the jester turned to the entrance hall and began to scream into a megaphone. "WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING?" He was speaking in Don Gatore's voice, but slightly distorted to make it sound like he was speaking not through a megaphone, but a low-quality loudspeaker.

"THIS IS OUR OWN PROPERTY YOU'RE DEMOLISHING RIGHT THERE. IF YOU'RE NOT HOPING FOR A NEW PAIR OF CLAY BOOTS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAYS, YOU'RE GONNA BACK OFF RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" He paused and all five of them remained still for a while. Staying still. Listening. But there was nothing. No tremors, no crashing, no rumbles.

The brawlers had stopped trying to tear the wall down. Upon giving it enough time to make sure, the source of the Don's voice shrugged. They might as well use this to further help with escaping this place. "I MIGHT YET FORGIVE THIS LITTLE SLIP-UP IF YOU DO AS I SAY! MOVE A LOT FURTHER BACK AND HUDDLE TOGETHER! THE CLOSER, THE BETTER. The moment of truth on how far they could take this was coming closer.

Pilot dismantled one of the turrets and carried the gatling gun with his bare hands to bring it through the foyer. It worked. A few dozen metres away from the entrance, the brawlers had formed as narrow a crowd as they could given their numbers. All they had to do from here was stand apart and fire straight at them.

With their weapons loaded and released, Ralsei and Pilot each fired a long salve right onto them and hit most of the brawlers that were in the very front. As soon as they noticed what had happened, the rest of them abandoned their friends and ran for their lives. "AND STAY AWAY!", the jester shouted still with Gatore's voice.

While the prince went ahead to pacify their wounded enemies and loot their pockets, the others formed a circle to discuss what to do next. "We have to rescue Janice!" Pilot was a lot more confident all of a sudden. Letting the cat out of the bag in front of more people must have been a relief. "As long as there's any chance of getting her out of there unharmed, I have to try."

"If we just chase after them right now, we'll run into an ambush."

"You know..." Kris tipped on Berdly's shoulder. "We just were in kind of an ambush a second ago and we're still alive. We'll think of something."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. He didn't like Kris' careless optimism, but he had a point. They had gotten themselves out of a lot of seemingly deadly pickles by this point. What ever Don Gatore threw at them couldn't be that bad either.

"HELLO? IS THIS THING WORKING YET?" Coming closer from the distance between the rows of formerly beautiful, but now burning and melting ruins, they could hear the Don's voice. Distorted from speaking through a loudspeaker, just as Pilot's was before, except that he wasn't the one talking.

A van came driving their way and stopped when it was just on the square and close enough for them to clearly hear what the Don was saying. There, it stopped with its left hand side and one of said loudspeakers pointing right at the five of them. From the same source came the timid voice of his secretary. "Not sure, Boss. Can you try saying something again?"

"HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO SET THIS UP? I DON'T PAY YOU FOR THIS INCOMPETENCE!"

"You don't pay me at all, sir."

"I DON'T PAY YOU FOR BACKTALK EITHER!"

"Hearing you loud and clear now, Boss."

"FINALLY. ARE ALL VEHICLES IN POSITION?"

"Yep. You say anythin', every corner of the city's gonna hear."

"SO LISTEN UP! I'VE BEEN HEARING THAT THE LIGHTNERS HAVE BEEN IMPERSONATING ME. THEY CAN COPY MY VOICE! FROM NOW ON, ANY INSTRUCTIONS YOU HEAR ME GIVE - IF THEY DON'T INVOLVE THE WORDS 'KILL' AND 'LIGHTNERS' AT SOME POINT, THEY ARE TO BE IGNORED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"

He cleared his throat. "THAT SAID, LIGHTNERS. I KNOW YOU'RE LISTENING. I DARE YOU TO COME HERE! YOUR LITTLE FRIEND IS SAFE AND SOUND, CRYING IN AN EMPTY CELL IN THE DUNGEON RIGHT UNDER CITY HALL!"

"Why is there a dungeon right under the city hall?" broke out of the bird.

"It's the Dark World, there's no point in asking these kinds of questions."

"YOU BETTER TRY TO GET TO HER FAST, I CAN HEAR THE SOBS FROM UP HERE! GO AHEAD! TRY TO BE SMART AND FIND SOME WAY AROUND MY GUYS! I'VE GOT SOMETHING SET UP THAT CAN MOVE AROUND FREELY. IT CAN'T BE STOPPED BY WALLS, NO SNEAKY WAY OUT OF THIS ONE. IT WILL CATCH YOU ANYWHERE YOU MIGHT GO. YOUR FRIEND WON'T BE IN A STATE TO GET YOU OUT OF THIS CITY WITHOUT THE GIRL. SO THE ONLY WAY TO THE LIGHT WORLD, IS THROUGH ME! WHATEVER YOU DO, YOU HAVE TO COME TO CITY HALL. AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS, IF MY BOYS CAN'T TAKE YOU DOWN, I WILL FACE YOU AND DO IT MYSELF!"

They tried approaching the van, but its driver made sure to keep a safe distance. When they came closer, it turned around to start driving down the road within the upper city. Every time they moved in a little closer, it sped up to move a little further ahead. Eventually, they wound up following it along the path the brawlers had fled in.

Past all the now burned and broken ruins that were once big, luxurious single family houses. Some used to be tall enough to reach the ceiling of the upper city's enclosure. "AND JUST IN CASE YOU THINK YOU'RE SNEAKY AND TRY LOOKING FOR SOME EASY WAY OUT, LET ME SPEED SOMETHING UP THAT I'VE BEEN WAITING TO DO FOR A LONG, LONG TIME NOW."

He cleared his throat again and took a deep breath before continuing. "ATTENTION, TO ALL BRAWLERS WHO HEAR THIS! THE RECONQUERING OF CANYON CITY IS REACHING IT'S CONCLUSION AT LAST. THE LAST MAJOR PART OF IT IS BACK IN BRAWLER HANDS! AND THE MAJORITIES OF THE SHARES OF EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS SECTOR IN THE CITY HAVE BEEN TRANSFERRED - ALL IN A PERFECTLY LEGALLY SOUND MANNER OF COURSE - OUT OF THE HANDS OF OUR OPPRESSORS AND INTO MINE. OUR UPPER HAND, OUR GRASP OF THIS CITY IS NOW SET IN STONE. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR ANY MORE. THERE IS NO MORE NEED TO HOLD BACK."

Oh god, if all this before has been them 'holding back', what were they going to do if they weren't holding back? "NO MORE NEED TO PLAY NICE, NO MORE NEED TO SPARE ANY LIVES. NOW THAT THOSE CLICKERS AREN'T IN A PLACE TO FIGHT BACK ANY MORE, WE CAN DITCH ANY TALK OF COEXISTING AND GET RIGHT TO KILLING THEM."

"GO AHEAD. NO JUDGE WILL FIND YOU GUILTY NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. THEY HAVE ALL BEEN SWAPPED TO BE FELLOW BRAWLERS. ALL THE ONES THAT HAVEN'T, KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT I'M GOING TO DO WITH THEIR SPINES IF THEY SHOULD HAVE THE GALL TO SO MUCH AS APPROVE A WARRANT, LET ALONE RULE ANY OF YOU GUILTY OF A CRIME! NO MORE HOLDING BACK! FLIP THEIR CARS, SMASH THEIR WINDOWS, KICK IN THEIR DOORS! FILL THEIR MEN WITH LEAD, BREAK THE NECKS OF THEIR WOMEN AND CRUSH THEIR CHILDREN'S SKULLS UNDER YOUR BOOTS. FIND EVERY LAST MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD THE CLICKERS HAVE AND KILL THEM ALL!"

"THEN WHEN THERE IS NO CLICKER BREATHING ABOVE THE CARNIVAL, FORM TEAMS, TAKE DOWN THE BEARS THAT GUARD THE CARNIVAL AND THEN KILL EVERYONE DOWN THERE AS WELL! MAKE THEM ALL SPEND THEIR LAST WAKING MOMENTS CURSING THE DAY THEY CHOSE TO SPARE OUR LIVES! HOW'S THAT, LIGHTNERS? WANT THIS TO STOP? THEN MAKE IT TO CITY HALL ALIVE AND FACE ME!"

"This person really has some anger management issues." To Ralsei it was surprising, to Berdly not at all. Of course he couldn't wait to get some homicidal action where he could put those gatling guns he always carried around to use. Berdly was too lost in figuring out whether Gatore was genuinely angry, or whether being like this was just his nature as a living action figure, to notice his classmate pulling out his phone.

Along with it, he pulled a large folder out of his little leather bag. By the time he took note, the human was already dialing some number he looked up in that folder. "Hello?" The person on the other end immediately picked up and from Berdly could hear even from where he stood, that they were seething as well.

Kris struggled to calm the grimy voice down. "It wasn't me, it...there's me, Ralsei, Berdly - my classmate - yes, the other one. And a guy that's dressed up as a court jester. We're in the upper city right now. Okay."

Kris took a step back, stretched out the phone to keep it in everyone's earshot and put the other person on speakerphone. A gnarly and furious sounding voice came out of it at once. "I heard everything! What the hell have you lightners been doing? You were supposed to prevent a war in the streets, not start one!"

Berdly just gave Kris a questioning look. "It's commissioner Brigham. The chief of the police here...I think."

"You think? Seriously, some almighty lightners you guys are." What kind of miracle was he expecting from them? They were just a bunch of teenagers. "Now tell me what the hell is going on and if it wasn't you, why exactly our mayor is holding speeches about killing all of us!"

Pilot stepped closer so he was in a better place to speak into the microphone. "It's Janice! She made a deal with the Dealmaker and then the Dealmaker killed everyone there and invited the brawlers to take over."

The angry commissioner stuttered upon hearing the very first words. "Pilot...Pilot? is that you? Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you!"

"This isn't important right now! The entire upper city is in ruins and everyone in it is dead! The inhabitants, security, everyone. The mayor has Janice! I'm going after him! I need to get Janice out of there at any cost!"

"What about the lightners? D'they agree to tag along?"

"She's my everything. I didn't really understand why she put herself in danger for so long just to find me, but now I do. I'm going after Gatore with or without them. Will you send me some reinforcements? Tech assistance? Any help would be a start."

The police chief sighed and took a moment to consider it. "I'll see what's possible. But I'm not making any promises. Listen. Old mayor used to have a pet dog. Dog's dead now. New mayor tried to eat it when he took office, but the dog house is still there on the right side of the garden unless Gatore demolished that as well. If anyone I send makes it to you, they'll be hiding somewhere around there, got it?"

The relieved jester's eyes widened. For the first time ever since they met him, he was hopeful. "Yes! Thank you! That's all I ask!"

"Yeah. You're welcome. And Pilot."

"Yes?"

"Good to have you back." He hung up right after that. Understandable, they must have been under siege more or less since the moment Gatore held his speech.

They fell quiet for a few seconds upon ending the phone call. Pilot took a deep breath, tensed his arms and clenched his fists. Then he raised his head again and looked at all three of them. Kris, Berdly, and Ralsei. "Lightners. I have to do this with or without you. Nonetheless, tell me, will you be at my side with this?"

"Of course you can count on us." Ralsei immediately looked to Kris, who put away the phone, stepped a little closer and gave him a thumbs up.

Berdly joined them, albeit with narrowed eyes. "It's not like we got a choice, right?"

A smile crept up Pilot's face. "Thank you. Now let's not waste any more time! We have to press forward!" He gestured towards the road they were following in pursuit of the van that had retreated completely by now and began marching ahead. "City hall is right this way." They had to hurry. They could hear it. They could feel it. The buildings to both sides were on fire, everything in and on them that could burn, was burning.

The toxic stench the evaporating plastic made for, burned itself into their nostrils. The walls were torn in by the same equipment the brawlers had tried to tear down the Dealmaker's Den with. They must have brought a lot of it when they arrived. Some of it was still there, the vehicles attached to them long abandoned.

Occasionally, they spotted one of them looting one of the dead men, women and children that used to live in these extravagant residences, but whenever they did, the brawler would stumble and soon run straight away from them. Especially if Ralsei released his rifle to prepare to fire.

In the distance, from beyond the walls of the upper city they could hear the sirens of the confused policemen's cars, they could hear the screams of the innocent inhabitants and the gunshots that quickly put a stop to the screams. The smooth, flat metal wall didn't ward off the sounds. It resonated with them and made them more audible than otherwise.

The city was burning, people were dying by the second, and they were all made very aware of it every second. Pluma was so scared, she was cowering and grabbing onto Berdly's side all by herself.

They occasionally ran short stretches, but they had to make sure they kept their breath and were ready to fight any time. Then, they arrived at another blown-open gate and wall, craters and dents in the metal casing around the upper city showing that similar explosions blew up this opening as they did at the Den. Immediately upon passing the craters, the upper city went on outside of the metal confines.

A tall brick wall warded off the rest of the city. It wasn't in the metal box, but it was still part of the upper city, as they could guess from the pattern of the long and wide, flat tiles that made up the square. Except that the square seemed a lot wider than what the tiles covered at first. Then, upon actually standing outside, where they could see the sky, Berdly took a few moments to get a grasp of what was odd about their new surroundings.

He went to where the tiles of the square ended, but where the square continued, and only then did he really grasp what he was seeing. The area wasn't really flat and wider than the square. At least, it wasn't built that way. At the ends of the square, began the open and ruined underground basements of various buildings that presumably used to stand there. A lot of the rubble-filled holes they had become were flooded with water from broken pipes.

And the bricks that stuck to the borders of those basements gave him more of a picture of what had happened here. There used to be houses everywhere here. Something ripped all the walls off down to the basements and pushed them away to the wall between this place and the rest of the inner city. And the giant heap of rubble must have been what was left of them.

With more of an idea of how this district probably used to look, it was clear that this square was actually a very wide promenade straight towards the wall. Opposite to it, with the remains of curved railings to both sides, led a humongous staircase further and further up a hillside. So far away from here, he could barely make out more, was a fence and a dozens of metres wide clock tower. Its walls could only be seen in a grim shade of brown against the dark world's nigh-lightless sky. "There!" That was where pilot pointed next. "City hall is that way!"

"Stop!" When they were just about to head towards the stairs, two figures came out of hiding. Two beavers, and if the species wasn't enough to tell, the plastic plates that mimicked the fur they were supposed to have removed any doubt that those weren't brawlers. They wore police uniforms as well, but except maybe for a pistol in a holster to each one's left side, they weren't armed.

Instead, they carried large briefcases with them. "Get down!" One of the beavers' gestures being directed their way made it clear they were talking to Kris and the others. Once both groups met up and retreated into a corner with a wall's worth of rubble warding them off from the rest of the open area, the beavers caught their breath and calmed down. "That was a close one! Blue skin, no fur, you're the lightner, right? Orange feathers, then you must be the other two."

"Yes? And you are..."

"Brick and Brack. We're from the precinct right behind that wall over there."

"You're the reinforcements Brigham sent?"

Both beavers smiled awkwardly and their heads sank down between each one's shoulders. "I think you had better file us under tech assistance. We don't really do field work."

The bird tilted his head and gave them a more stern look. "Wait, what kind of tech assistance."

The beavers exchanged a quick glance. "All-round as long as it's hands-on. Depends on what you need done. Security systems? Weaponry?" For the time being, this was good enough. He wasn't sure what rules applied in a magical city made of building blocks. And in the ruins thereof, allies were hard to come by anyway.

"So what are we hiding from?"

The two strangers began trembling again. "The mayor's got choppers patrolling the sky above city hall."

"Choppers? You mean like helicopters?"

"Yes! Police choppers. Two of them and armed to both sides each. If we were to head up to the gardens now we'd all be goners."

"Since when do the brawlers have police choppers?"

"The mayor confiscated them when he sued us over a parking ticket."

Berdly started to see a pattern here. Then again, if lawbreakers were put in charge of how the law was applied, what else could he expect? "You heard the mayor loud and clear, he wasn't bluffing. If we can't think of something to deal with those choppers, your chances at getting to the mayor are pretty grim."

"I'd say they're pretty grim already." The clicking sound off to their side announced a weapon that was pointed at them. The person holding it was the eel the mayor had come to the upper city with.

Berdly wasn't even surprised or scared. More than anything confused. He gave the eel a questioning look. He didn't even bother to look for his eyes, he just stared at that sideways strand of green hair on his head. "Deandre?" Kris was surprised that he remembered his name. "Aren't you going to run away like the others?"

Indeed albeit slowly and while still pointing his weapon at them, the eel was walking backwards ever so slowly. "Not gonna lie. I kinda do feel like runnin'. But I got backup." Then he stopped. Everyone stopped. An awkward silence settled in. The eel cleared his throat and fumbled around in his leather jacket. With phone out and having instant-dialed some number he recently called, he repeated himself. "I said, I've got backup." The more time passed, the further he backed off and the more nervous he got, until eventually, he just hissed at Kris and the others and ran for it. "What's keepin' ya! Get a move on, they're right below the stairs!"

The curious group finally stepped out of their little corner. The ground shook ever so slightly. It was so slight, they could only feel it with their feet and only if their shoes were planted straight onto the pavement. Then the tremors came closer. And at a much faster pace than the mayor's steps earlier. As if there were more legs marching. No, galloping.

Then the area around them did shake a bit and with a rumble loud enough to fill the entire square and the cleared-out properties around it, the brick wall burst open and an entire, pretty wide segment was outright broken out of it and pushed inward. It was being pushed by a creature with a thick coat of brown fur and an awkward-looking roundish face. It was the moose they had heard of.

The creature stood as tall as most of the ruins used to be before they were torn down and wide enough to match it. It pushed the piece it had broken off a little further with its antlers and then raised its head to flip it over and let it fall onto the ground, causing more tremors and propelling a current of dust away from it. "Woah! Simmer down there, big guy!"

A person sat on a wide bench, attached to the back of the moose through solid metal cables that were wrapped around its neck, front legs and antlers. It was one of the very first brawlers they met ever since they fell into the dark world. The shark with the mohawk, except that the had ditched his city costume completely. No hat, no jacket. Just a shark dressed like a biker.

Two more metal cables were arranged to be in reach of the shark's arms, which he held onto and tried to use to guide the animal. With negligible success. When he tried pulling on both, the ceature just raised its head and shook it. "Hold on, big guy! The lightners are right over the- woah!" He tried pulling its head in Berdly's direction again, but his guidance was only met with rejection.

A wild animal wasn't so willing to be steered by whoever thought to sit on its back. "That's it, you stubborn animal! You made me do this! I'm gettin' out the zapper!" The brawler stuck his hand in an unusually long pocket attached to his leather trousers and pulled out a lengthy metal stick with two more thin rods at its end. The rods flared up with a visible electric current flowing between them.

As soon as the animal would let him, he climbed up the back of his bench and struck the moose's back with the charged end of his little device. The effects of the current being channeled into the beast could be seen throughout its motions. It spurred it on into a sudden rage in which the brawler lost control of it for good and it began charging straight past Berdly and the others' little hideout, through the outside wall of the city and dragged a lot of rubble along its path.

The shark was barely able to hold onto his bench and was only hanging off of its side by one arm by the end of it.

"Wait, that's it, follow me! Quick!" Berdly had an idea and waved for everyone else to follow him. With his arm wound tightly around his sister, he ran back into the metal box as fast as he could, with everyone else following him. "That brawler's having problems steering the moose. And the metal is harder to get through than the blocks outside. Being in here buys us a little more time."

The two policemen took a little longer to follow them, and they needed more time to catch their breaths when they arrived. Pilot and Ralsei approached them. "So, what kind of tech assistants are you exactly?"

They were both still wheezing, but one managed to answer. "Anything. We're flexible mostly. Doors, bombs to blow up doors, firearms, security systems, tools to disable security systems...we're ignoring the mayor's regulations, so we can build whatever we want. Anything you want made and that could be useful, we can probably make. So where's Pilot exactly? I heard you found him."

Pilot took that as his cue to take off his fool's cap, if only briefly to show them who he was below it. "Oh, now I get it."

The prince raised a finger. "Whichever path we choose, we need to get to city hall. So we're going to have to do something about those helicopters. Can you make something that can take them down?"

"What, like a weapon? A gun?"

"Maybe something bigger, something that can take down a vehicle."

"So a bigger gun. Which would be a cannon."

"This city is a bit too advanced for cannons, do you have something a little less..."

Berdly stepped in to finish his sentence. "Dated. Do you have something less dated. More modern. Something more in line with cars, electricity and so on."

Both tech assistants scratched their chins. And their buck teeth. "Hm...we'll see what we can make."

After making sure they still had some time, Kris joined them as well. "Berdly I'm not sure what you're expecting. There's nothing here to make any weapons with."

One of the beavers smiled. "Oh I wouldn't worry about that." He pulled a building block, with its connecting segments laid bare, off of the torn down wall of one of the many destroyed houses around them. "We can make pretty much anything even with these. We just need an idea what."

"Right, while you figure that out..." He and Kris went back to be a little closer to the exit to keep an eye on that shark trying to get the moose under his control. "Whatever they make, to use it properly or get it up those stairs, we'll have to deal with that moose first. So what's the plan, Kris?"

The human had no discernible expression on his face whatsoever. "I have no idea."

"What do you mean you have no idea. Weren't you supposed to be the leader here?"

"Berdly, this is your toy box, not mine. You know more about any of this than I do. What is this moose?"

His classmate sighed. "It's a plush."

"Why is it here?"

"Because reasons - look. Okay, so it's a plush, right? What happens if you squeeze a plush?"

"Nothing."

"Right, it reverts back to its form the moment you let it go. The filling and the way its sown make it sort of elastic. So of course the police shooting it like I suspect they did, isn't going to do anything. If all I've seen of the dark world and how it works is any indication, any attacks we throw at this thing aren't going to accomplish much."

"Kind of like with K. Round."

"Who?"

"The checker piece. Susie wouldn't stop attacking it even though it would just heal itself back up and make itself even stronger every time."

"Mindlessly attacking any big thing that comes her way. Yep, that sounds like Susie all right."

"You know, she's usually not that stu..."

"Yes she is, Kris. Yes she is." He clapped his hands to bring the two of them back on-topic. "Now, moose. How do we deal with it. Can't be beaten with physical force, but..."

They spent a few more moments watching that brawler try and fail to take control of the creature, and all his attempts only leading to it jumping around and trying to shake him off all the more. "...but, it still acts like a wild animal. Like an actual wild, non-monster moose. Moose aren't afraid of confrontation, anyone that provokes them they just impale with their antlers or trample with their hooves. But they are afraid of a threat they can't impale or trample."

"Like what?"

"Fire. Fire-fire. Burning fire. Pilot!" He waited for their friend to come closer before he went on. "I'm going to need you to magic up a few things with your cap."

"And what exactly?"

"A very big heap of firewood and something that can push it around. Think construction."

"All right, shouldn't be too difficult." The jester stepped further towards the hole that was the exit and shouted back at all of them: "Everyone look away for a second!"

The beavers needed Ralsei to encourage them to just listen and followed suit, but other than that, everyone quickly closed their eyes or looked the other way. By the time they looked back at Pilot, he was sitting in a big yellow loading vehicle with the ordered heap of wood already scooped up and ready to push wherever the vehicle went. "Okay. How is that weapon coming along?"

Upon looking back, they noticed that the tech assistants had long gotten to rapidly assembling something big using nothing other than building blocks ripped off of the surrounding ruins.

"Right, now we just need it to burn and we're good to go. It's best if it's already on fire when we move out so we can scare the moose away in one big move."

"Need a light?" By the time he faced Pilot, the jester was already holding a lighter his way.

"Thanks. Pluma, stay with Ralsei." His sister obliged and walked over to watch the beavers assemble what seemed to be some kind of vehicle. By now, outside, the brawler had gotten the moose to turn around, but it only dashed right past their location again. Now it was in a position to drive it further inward where it wouldn't come back to them too soon. He held the lit flame against some of the wood and once it started burning, quickly stepped back.

"Okay, let's go!" Kris, Berdly and Pilot hastily climbed onto the back of the vehicle and squeezed into the driver's seat. Luckily for them, the jester knew exactly which controls to flip how and they were quick to hit the gas and pursue the animal with their mobile bonfire. It immediately switched from its attempts to shake off the shark towards running away from the fire. As soon as they had chased it far enough for it jump over an intact part of the wall, they got out.

"Berdly! It worked!" Kris pointed at three far-apart locations in opposed corners of the open area. "Now we need more fires there, there and there. Actually all around. The more, the better." As if of one mind, they simultaneously covered their eyes for the fool's cap to work and sure enough, more piles of wood appeared where they needed them.

Kris summoned his sword and impaled one burning log of wood to carry it over to another one of the piles and set that one on fire, and repeated it until every corner of their square and the flattened area around it was outfitted with a huge fire to ward off the beast. A ring around this whole place, with plenty of space within it to move around multiple vehicles if necessary. Now this was the last place in this city that moose would want to go to.

"Now then!" They hurried back inside the big metal box to find that the beavers's work was finished. But what they found prompted a more perplexed reaction than they first thought necessary. "What? Isn't that a bit overkill?"

"You wanted something bigger that isn't a cannon. I'm assuming the coast is clear." Before them stood a mobile set of heavy artillery. Two large rockets - homing rockets hopefully - mounted onto a truck that the beavers got into while Ralsei kept Berdly's sister out of the way.

They built an artillery set out of rubble from broken houses. While still driving outside and eventually parking in the very centre of the square, one of the two continued to shout their way: "This is perfect. Lots of room. Thanks!" They got out of the vehicle while the others followed, and proceeded to make adjustments on a console they had built onto the side. "We can lock onto them and have two secure shots, one for every chopper, but only if we get a clear shot. We can't do it from here. Either we have to get a bit further up there, or they have to come closer."

Berdly tilted his head. "Hm, so we're going to have to lure the - hey, stop!" Before he could go on, Pilot was already running up the stairs with a big, presumably bullet-proof police shield on his back. "What are you doing?"

He only briefly stopped to answer. "Not being a coward any more."

Mere seconds later, right outside the fence they could barely see from here, entire salves of firecrackers soared into the air and exploded into multicoloured patterns and ducking sideways out of the searchlights that chased him, the jester came running back downstairs with the pursuing helicopters' gunfire closely following his steps. "We got a lock on them!" the beavers announced.

With the push of a few more buttons, both rockets launched, one after the other, and headed straight for the helicopters. And they both struck them and caught them in loud, fiery explosions. They all took cover and could still feel the force of it. "Targets destroyed, both of them! We did it! Now go get'em, lightners. We're out of here. City needs us!"

Scared as they were, seeing as they were trembling since the very moment they first met those two, they were enough of a help this far, so Kris and the others understood them backing out now. "Good luck, Pilot!"

The five people remaining waited for a few moments until the last bits of burning debris rolled down the sides of the staircase. Then they started making their way up the stairs. Finally, things were moving forward and looking a lot better. At least Berdly thought so, until his whimpering sister, led up the steep steps by his hand, pulled at him. She didn't want to continue. When he turned around, she spoke up. "Berdie! Berdie!"

"What?" He stopped and kneeled down to level with her. "What's going on?"

"Berdie, don't you hear it? You have to wake up!" She looked scared. And something was going on with her.

"Hear what? There's nothing to hear, the explosions are over. It's time to fetch Ja- Debbie!"

"No! The buzz! You're gonna be late for school! You have to wake up."

He grabbed her tightly by both shoulders. "Pluma? Pluma what's going on?" He started seeing what was happening, but it was too weird for him to believe at first. She was sort of becoming...transparent. He could see the stairs she was standing on right through her. "What buzzing? Pluma, talk to me!" She was being silent, and looked a bit absent. And more and more, she was vanishing right before his eyes. "Pluma? Pluma!"

With uneven breathing he could see through her jacket, she nigh-whispered. "Wake up, Berdie. Turn it off. Wake up!"

Then she just disappeared completely. "Pluma? Pluma!" He couldn't feel her shoulders any more either, he was grasping thin air. Now his heart began to race even more than it was from rushing up these stairs and all the things that had been happening lately. "Oh no, Pluma! No! No, no, no, no, no, no! This has to be some weird dark world thing!"

His head aimlessly turned from place to place as if he was looking for something, but he was really just scrambling for something to not make him panic even more. He was frantically darting around and hyperventilating as it was. "Waking up! She was talking about waking up! Pilot! Infobadges! Do you have any infobadges?"

Infobadges. Those little red badges that allowed you to ask the nigh-omniscient infopage a question. He needed one right now. He had one hope. A hope that was keeping him from completely freaking out for the time being. While the jester was still looking for them in his pockets, the hyperventilating bird turned to his classmate. "Kris! Did Pluma tell you anything about how she came here? To the dark world I mean?"

Kris remained mostly calm in all this. "I'm not sure if she had any idea how, if I'm honest."

"Nothing about any closets or portals or falling way down or..."

"Nope. She didn't really think about it. I think she couldn't remember how." Okay, that gave his hope a little credence. But he wasn't going to calm down until he knew for sure that she was fine. "The most she said was that she flew here with Janice, but she never said how she got to where she met her."

Having found where he stashed them away, the jester placed one on the floor, pressed his finger onto the surface and stepped back. As expected, the weirdly-dressed parrot appeared right above the badge. "Hello. I am the infopage. Do you have any questions I can help you with?"

"Yes. Do li - can you dream your way to the dark world - as a lightner?"

The page took a second to register the question and then responded with a calm that didn't match the overall air at all. "Albeit an uncommon occurrence, for as long as any records available show, lightners have always been able to travel to the dark world within dreams." Immediately upon hearing this, Berdly closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as he could. His suspicion was right. Pluma wasn't in danger. Perhaps she never was in the first place.

She was dreaming the whole time. "Detailed records on what conditions apply to this phenomenon are sometimes hard to interpret due to lightners - at least at first - often getting confused for darkners due to their visual similarity to a lot of darkners. But several common patterns emerge. Most notably, they have a strong tendency to neither be aware that they're in the dark world - possibly for lack of knowledge about the dark world's existence - nor the fact that they are dreaming."

"Though there is variation from lightner to lightner, they usually appear to be in a kind of trance state in which they outright refuse to think about things that might confuse them and usually pertain towards whether or not they're dreaming, such as how they arrived in their location. In fact, the location within the dark world that they arrive in is determined by what thoughts and desires shaped their dreams in the first place. One key example that comes to mind is..."

"Okay, that's all I wanted to know, let's go!" The situation they were in warranted feelings like fear, concern, and a paranoia warranted by the constant possibility of being attacked from any angle at any given moment. But Berdly didn't feel any of these things any more.

With Pluma awake and back in the light world, one big worry was off his chest. So above all else, he was relieved. "Pluma talked about a buzz. She meant my buzzer. My alarm clock is going off back at home and she can hear it. She never was here to begin with." Once they were at the fence that surrounded the humongous garden with the tower atop city hall almost at the other end of it, they stayed in hiding for a while. "Kris..."

He waited until he was sure he had the human's attention. "Are we dreaming, too? Is this some sort of dream?"

"Well for a start, I couldn't hear the buzzing and I don't think you did either. Besides, he said if we dream our way here, then we don't think about how we came here."

"I remember coming here after I fell into my closet."

"I remember the same thing. Speaking of your closet - "

"No!" He wasn't going to have this conversation now. Now was the time to settle down and explore the garden that lay atop the stairs. Janice was waiting to be reunited with Pilot. And Kris, Berdly and Ralsei had a fountain to seal.


	12. Point of no Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They made it to City Hall. No amount of goons or other obstacles was enough to stop them. Now all that is left, is to lead Pilot back to Janice, and to put an end to the mayhem by sealing that fountain.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 12

Point of No Return

* * *

The garden around City Hall was wide and lush. With many bushes cut into sculptures. At least it probably used to be like that, until the brawlers disfigured the sculptures and covered them in spray paint. A few armed lizards with spiky arm bands patrolled the park with guns, but it was safe to assume unless they had something up and ready to give them a leg up, that they wouldn't risk fighting them any more.

The building consisted of a cross of four outer wings that hopefully distributed the pressure from the tower's weight in four directions, with the black blurb that indicated the fountain they were looking for rising up in the sky just a bit behind the building. But the entire front side of the front wing was torn down. It was a miracle that whole thing was still standing.

And in the distance, in the shadows of its interior, Berdly believed he could spot the giant alligator that had worked so long to turn this dream of a city into a nightmare. "So." They all huddled together in the shadow of a bush at the side of the staircase to observe. "Gatore said he had a dungeon right beneath City Hall. Any ideas where we could find something like that?"

"Probably inside City Hall."

"Or possibly..." Pilot stretched out his hand towards a stone structure off to the left. With two wide open and very tall stone doors. "This leads right to a huge mausoleum that stretches across almost this whole park. Everywhere you can see here - right below it, there's corridors of that mausoleum. And those doors have got to be wide open for a reason. That's of course unless the brawlers respect the dead too much to defile their tombs."

"Yeah, nah. From what I've seen as long as the dead aren't brawlers, they're happy to defile as many tombs as they can."

Kris nodded.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"They looted the mausoleum, dumped the people buried down there somewhere else and made it the Don's personal dungeon."

"Yep. Something like that." Throughout this whole conversation, Ralsei remained silent and gnawed at his claws. He was horrified at how whenever you thought those brawlers couldn't stoop any lower, it turned out they were even worse. The problem with getting in there, was that the entrance pointed towards the middle path between the front entrance to the park and the City Hall itself.

Even if only briefly, they'd be on display no matter what if they tried to enter. "We have to get the right angle and then swing right around that outer door, so we can get inside without getting caught." They followed Kris' lead and moved to the side to be positioned in a way in which the stone structure stood between them and the front area where the Don and a few of the patrolling brawlers were. This way they weren't in line of sight.

Berdly grabbed Kris by the shoulder and faced him. "Wait, how are we getting past the fence?"

"What fence?" When he looked back, he found Pilot smiling and a segment of the fence, right in front of them, missing.

"I'm guessing you can't just make a piece of the right wall of that stone entrance disappear too?"

"Not sure if it works that way. I have a better idea. Stay here." Pilot left and went off to the right side. They watched him sneak all the way around the right corner of the park and quite a bit to its side. After they lost him, some time passed before he showed up again, laying out some kind of wire on the floor along his path.

Upon holding it up, he revealed that it wasn't a cable, but the end of a wick. He pulled a match out of thin air, scratched it against a nearby stone surface and lit the end of the wick before dropping it on the floor. Then, they all lay in wait. Eventually, it was time.

All the way on the other side, more firecrackers soared into the air, and patrols all around released their weapons and ran towards the source of the noise and the lights. That was their cue. While the fireworks were still going and heads were still turning, they ran towards the entrance, each one grabbing hold of the outside stone door, swung around it and inside the stone staircase.

"WEAKLINGS! NO MORE DISTRACTIONS! COME AND FACE ME!" It appeared that they had drawn the Don's attention, but it wasn't sure whether he knew where they were. They didn't stop descending the staircase to listen if someone followed them, until they were all the way downstairs. At least as far as this set of stairs took them, as to the left and right of its end, there were two more that led even further down. It was dark down here. Few and far-apart candles only faintly illuminated the place.

Once they did though, a lengthy black cloud manifested out of thin air beside them. And when it dispersed, it left behind a familiar black goat with white glowing facial features in a white suit and his tie sporting a light blue in the light of a nearby flickering light. "Luxon!" Pilot grabbed him by his collar. "How dare you show your face here!"

Samuel smiled and placed his hand on Pilot's. "Oh I wouldn't do that if I were you. Besides, I'm on your side on this one." The jester only reluctantly let go of him.

Ralsei stepped between Pilot and Samuel to prevent any more confrontations and looked up at him. "You are?"

"Don't forget that I've made a deal with Janice. I am here to assure my end of it is kept. I know where she is, I will clear the way for you."

"Wait!" He was about to vanish again until the prince grabbed him by the arm. "If you're on our side now, could you please try and not kill everyone you come across?"

The Dealmaker placed both hands on his hips. "Really now? Those helicopters had people in them too, you know."

This time, Kris came to back up his friend. "Look, me and Ralsei have this thing going on where we try to not kill people if we don't have to. I'm not sure how we were supposed to befriend or pacify the helicopters either."

Though barely visible with all of them glowing, the Dealmaker rolled his eyes. "Fair enough." The revolver that had already appeared in his hand, disappeared and reappeared, but with him holding the barrel rather than the grip, ready to use the grip like a hammer to knock out his targets instead of shooting them. "This won't take long." Samuel summoned a cane into his other hand and then vanished.

After mere seconds, he was back. "Traps disabled, ruffians knocked out. Nothing is between you and her any more. Nothing but yourself that is, of course."

The corridors had rooms to both sides everywhere. Chambers each with a coffin on an altar. Each chamber was turned into a prison cell by hastily attaching a set of bars to its front to keep the ghosts, skeletons and occasional vampires, all of which glowed in white and light green against the darkness of their tombs, that grabbed onto the bars and intently watched the varying group of strangers pass them. "They were talking about lightners coming!"

"You look different than them! You're the lightners, right?"

"The lightners have come to save us!"

"Please open those cages! Free us!"

"Well, if the dead were ever resting, they aren't any more now."

Berdly felt he had to chime in. "Don't do it, Kris." That human was glancing off towards those dead people too much for him not to. "They're just going to cause more chaos."

"We will, on our way back." The dead cheered upon hearing Kris say that. "But keep it down, please...thank you."

The path that Samuel led them in wound around several corners. He didn't begin pointing towards Janice's cell until they reached the very end of the longest corridor this floor must have had. Once they recognized her by her coat, the rest stayed back, while Pilot slowly approached her. She was still crying, just like Gatore said she was. "Janice? Janice! We found you." She did turn around briefly, but she turned her back on him as soon as she saw the jester.

"Go away." She tried to scare him away, but her voice was trembling so much, her attempts to shout just came out as louder, shaky wails.

He lowered himself a little and reached out for her with one hand. "We're here to get you out of here."

It wasn't any use. She just kept crying with her face buried in her hands. "What difference does it make? The city is dying, and all because I wanted him back. It's my fault! I did all this, and I still don't have him back."

He kneeled down and shuffled a little closer. "You can just go home, he might come home if you do!"

She shrieked back at him. "Get lost!", but as soon as she was looking back at the wall, she apologized. "I'm sorry, I appreciate you trying, but there's no point. It's just...Just go. There's no point in going anywhere without him. Without him, what else would I have to go back to? He's gone. And nothing you say is going to bring him back. Just leave me alone."

"No." He came closer until he was a mere two steps away from her. "There is something I can say." He took one deep breath, paused for a moment after that with his eyes closed, and then took off his fool's cap and spoke with his true voice. "I'm sorry. This cap suits me. I was a coward and a fool."

"Pilot...Pilot?" Still in disbelief at the voice she heard, she turned around to see his face. "Pilot!" She shuffled closer and wound her arms around him. "Pilot! It was you! But why?" She cried into his shoulder for a few moments, before randomly swinging her fists down his back in a sudden tantrum. "Why would you lead me on like this? Why?"

He just took it. The tremors in his shoulders showed to the younger ones that he was as swept up in this as she was. "I wanted you out of harm's way. Either out of the city or in the safety of that town. I thought if I led you around circles, you would give up and stand back at least for a while. The lightners would seal that fountain and we could all go back home safely."

"But why? Why the disguise? Why did any of this happen? Why now?"

"Now is not the best time for this. Come on. We'll go back home, we'll all calm down, wash up and when all the excitement is over, I will show you why. I didn't forget our anniversary, I promise. It is part of the reason why I...why all this happened from the start." They stayed like this for a while. She was still crying, but she was crying into his shoulder and they could all hear that it was subsiding. "Now, now. You want to go home?" Janice didn't say anything. She just nodded with her head against the side of his. "Let's go home." They got up.

With his arm still wound around Janice, the former jester passed by the former club owner. "I guess I owe you a thank you for leading us back to each other. Even if it took destroying the whole city to do so." With a sinister grin, the Dealmaker stepped back bowed, and vanished in a momentary burst of black flames.

With no regard for anything, the human's intentions to push forward burst right out of him. "Now for the ghosts and skeletons." The moment the human brought them up, all the other no longer resting 'inmates' cheered.

"Wait, Kris, you can't be serious."

"The ghosts are our escape plan."

"Do you really think the best exit strategy is to unleash an army of undead?"

"They're still better than the spiky lizards."

Berdly lowered his head and the opening on his beak shifted to the side. "I guess you're right. Okay, everyone! You're free! Time to get spooky and scare those brawlers as much as you can." Kris dug his sword into the metal pipes that were used to hold the gates and yank the lids off to pull them off.

Berdly just aimed his clown pistols at the locks for long enough to make them explode and neither really knew what kind of spell Ralsei was using to open the doors, but it worked. The happy denizens of the mausoleum rushed right past them and helped free more of them. The halls between the chambers became more and more crowded.

Once enough of them for free for them to free themselves at enough of a pace, without Kris', Berdly's and Ralsei's help, the very relieved and very tall couple went up to the teenagers. "My friends, thank you. For everything. I could never repay you in full. But..."

He pulled his cap back out. "Janice. This thing only further enabled my mistakes. But the one who gave it to me, did so with the best of intentions. I wouldn't do it justice if I didn't use it to its fullest. If only once. Is that all right?" She gazed at him and nodded. And sure enough, he put his cap back on. "Let's clear the lightners a path to the Don." With newfound confidence, he set to accompany some of the skeletons up the stairs. "Lightners! Focus on the Don. I will draw enough of the others' attention."

The three of them stayed back for a bit. Kris took a deep breath and gave both others a look. "Are you ready for this? This is it. The final battle."

"Of course!"

Berdly sighed and followed him as they turned around to follow the crowd. "You've always been good with these battles somehow. We'll do this. Whatever commands you have, I'll follow." Now it came. The moment of truth. They ascended the stairs back outside.

Everywhere, floating ghosts and rattling skeletons were swarming the more numerous brawlers. Pilot hadn't done anything yet, but once they joined up, he began to move. He swung one arm to the side and upwards and shouted: "Chaos!" He was putting on his squeaky jester voice again, too. Next to a snake in black leather with brass knuckles on both hands, a two metre wide and long patch of grass just flipped open like some kind of lid.

Mounted onto an oversized spring, a huge jack-in-the-box sprang out. Except instead of some clown- or jester design, the object that sprang out was modeled after Ralsei, dressed in his green robe with his hat, wielding a rifle. Pilot swung his other arm. "Chaos!"

A drake with horns, who's leather clothing you could almost describe as leather armor, was covered in pieces of glittering metal, shrugged together when another patch of grass opened up right behind him to make way for another jack to spring out. This time with a design that depicted a huge Kris, in his armor, striking out with his sword. "Chaos!" A third patch launched a shark that stood on it a bit away upon opening up and sprang out a bunch of bananas for a 'jack'.

The park was very, very big. And thus there was a lot of fence around it. Even with as many people all around, it was impossible for someone to stare at every single piece at all times. So gradually, one by one, it appeared that the segments of the outside fence grew legs and began walking about in random directions.

The defaced bushes fell over and began rolling around. The ones that bumped into a brawler, had spider legs extend out of them, followed by a spider's face and a spider's abdomen and began attacking them.

Before any of them had much more time to react, Pilot took an impossibly deep breath and began shouting anew. "Chaos! Chaos! Chao-Cha-cha-cha-cha" At an impossible speed as if it were just a sound byte being replayed in rapid succession, he repeatedly shouted 'Chaos!' and one by one, each time he did, almost every bit of the park's grass opened up and had more jacks shoot out everywhere.

Finally, Don Gatore stepped outside through the torn-down wall. He was so big, he had to bend down to fit the hole they had torn into the front wall. "WHAT IS THIS? STOP SCRAMBLING AROUND! DO SOMETHING! KILL THE LIGHTNERS AND ANYONE THAT COMES HERE TO HELP THEM."

With them laying bare from the sleeves being long torn right off the mayor's custom suit, you could see the muscles on his arms shift with his anger, while he raised clenched fist into the air, along with it the gatling gun that was attached to it.

Kris and the others were already walking up to him, but Pilot sped up to dance ahead of them and wagged his index finger at the Don. "Now now, my easily infuriated friend. Is it not rather dangerous to stand so close to a rocket that's about to take off?"

The Don assumed a menacing battle stance, with his elbows raised so far, they were at his head's height. "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU ON ABOUT?"

The jester folded up his arms, smiled, and then pointed to the side of the building. Upon closer inspection, the central tower of it now had fins at the corners that reached all the way to the ground.

The Don even stumbled a bit himself when he saw and heard the bright and noisy stream of fire rushing down from further up in the central tower. From somewhere, a voice announced the countdown. "Four, three, two, one, ignition!" And just like that, with a rush that drowned out all other noises the clock tower of City Hall lifted off and flew away. Leaving the swaths of blackness flooding up from the pool in the distance much more clearly in their sight.

"THAT WAS CITY PROPERTY! MY PROPERTY!" He swung around and aimed his weapons towards where the jester stood, but the moment he did, a cracking noise preceded a wave of confetti showering down right where he was supposed to stand. The giant reptile pulled his triggers, after a second of delay, the stacked-together barrels began to turn and unleash countless shots Pilot's way, but they all hit the earth.

He was long gone by the time the Don had opened fire. Whatever else Pilot may have been doing with that cap, it was working. The brawlers were leaving the area all around, driven away by jacks, giant plant spiders and spooky skeletons. Time for the Fun Gang to roll in. "YOU!"

"Berdly..." Kris tipped on his classmate's shoulder before this went any further. "I'm going to give him an out. One chance."

"What?"

"We did with King, too. We have to see if it's possible. Remember, that stuff we told you earlier. It's obvious that King was under some kind of mind control. We have to at least give the Don a chance to snap out of it."

"YOU MAY HAVE GOTTEN PAST MY TOYS AND THAT OVERGROWN ELK! BUT MOVE ONE STEP CLOSER TO THIS FOUNTAIN AND YOU WILL ALL HAVE FIFTY CALIBER ROUNDS PEEKING OUT OF EVERY INCH OF YOUR SKIN...OR FUR...OR FEATHERS!"

With the wind moving about his cape and a swing of his arm, Kris pointed straight at the Don. "Ralsei! Try to reason with him!"

Berdly couldn't suppress a grin. "Way to be dramatic, Kris."

The prince stepped forward, cleared his throat and tried his best. "Mr. Gatore...sir...listen! The bears, all those creatures down in the carnival, they're not citizens either, and yet they can get along with them just fine. Maybe you can, too."

"THEY WILL DIE AS FAST AS THE CLICKERS WILL, ONCE WE'RE DONE WITH THE FORMER!"

Kris followed Ralsei and moved a bit to the right side. "Gatore, the citizens imprisoned you because unlike the people at the carnival, you were robbing and murdering people. They don't deserve any of this."

"THE MOMENT THEY LAID HANDS ON US, THEY COMMITTED AN INJUSTICE THAT I WILL NEVER FORGIVE! WHAT WE MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DONE TO 'deserve' IT IS MEANINGLESS! THE INJUSTICE STANDS! UNTIL WE HAD OUR JUSTICE, THERE WILL BE NO PEACE! AND WE WON'T HAVE HAD OUR JUSTICE UNTIL EVERY LAST CLICKER LIES DEAD IN THE SAND!" 

Taking this as his cue, Kris lowered his head ever so slightly, and he moved a bit further to the side to help cut off his way in case he was going to flee in that direction. As far as he was concerned, there was no other way than to fight and even kill him. This alligator just wanted to kill everyone no matter what. This stuff about justice sounded like word salad to rationalize it to him.

"NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS, ONCE I'M DONE WITH YOU, WE WILL HUNT DOWN EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE CLICKERS!" The reptile turned a little smug and began pumping his arms up and down to cheer himself on. "WE WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE! WE WILL RUN THE SHOW IN THIS CITY! THEN WE WILL RUN THE SHOW IN OTHER DARK REALMS! AND IN THE END, WE WILL RUN THE SHOW IN THE LIGHT WORLD, TOO!"

"That's it." And with another point in the Don's direction, the human called upon their third member. "Berdly! Say something annoying to him!"

Berdly's time to step forward. With both clown pistols drawn from his orange jacket, he was a bit more confident. "Hey! Chippendale Croc! You're not running anyone's show. My two friends met someone like you in the dark world before. Signs of a struggle, a weird obsession with the Knight, he was under the Knight's control. Just like you. You're no Don. A basic street goon at least can think for himself. You can't even do that."

Not only was he not interrupted. The Don wasn't impressed in the slightest. Instead, a wide grin crept up those open jaws. "CURIOUS! YOU THINK I'M THE KNIGHT'S MINDLESS PUPPET, HUH? A MARIONETTE WITH ALL ITS STRINGS AT HIS FINGERS. A TOY FOR HIM TO PLAY WITH AS HE PLEASES."

He bore the many sharp teeth he had. Clean white, but thinner and even more sharp than Susie's. "I'VE GOT HAVE SOME BAD NEWS FOR YOU THEN. YOU WANT TO HEAR SOMETHING ABOUT THE KNIGHT?" The reptile adjusted his fingers to be right on the triggers on both hands.

Kris could tell he was intending to fire any moment. Or at least to be ready to do so any time. Which meant he already had a target in mind. And those brief glances right at him told him it was him.

"THE KNIGHT CAME BACK ONLY A DAY AGO. HE GAVE ME THE SKETCHES, THE COPIES OF WHICH I GAVE OUT WITH A BOUNTY ON YOUR HEADS. BUT WHEN HE DID, HE TOLD ME VERY CLEARLY - HE INSISTED AS MUCH MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE! OF THOSE THREE ON THE PICTURE HE THEN GAVE ME, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, I WAS TO KEEP! THE HUMAN! ALIVE!" They could tell he was inhaling from those nose holes in the front widening.

He pulled up his weapons, swung right Kris' way and began to fire. Kris ran straight ahead, waited out the barrage and ducked under the start of it on his way. He rushed inside, past the Don, up the half-molten railing to take shelter there and hide around the corner in the mostly open ruin of this public building.

Where the bullets struck in the mayor's attempts to hit Kris, splinters of charred wood and the powdery residue of molten and brittle plastic was blown into the air around them. Even towards the laughing mayor himself. "DOES IT LOOK LIKE I AM EVEN TRYING?" The left and right wing of the building had an upper floor, one of which Kris had made it to, connected to the ground floor with stairs.

With him turning around and pointing both his weapons inside, Berdly saw his chance. And there came Kris' command to use it too. "Berdly! Smugshot!" He pointed both his pistols at the mountainous reptile. He waited for the circles to overlap the way he needed them to, and shot. The little 'bang' flags came out of the barrels and a patch of skin the back of the Don's left shoulder bloated up and exploded, splattering the wincing creature's blood in various directions.

"YOU LITTLE..." By the time he turned around, Kris jumped off the railing with his sword in position to swing and bury it into the creature's back. Right above where the ammunition belts that covered his chest and back crossed. And deep enough into the solid flesh for it to make for something to hold onto.

Unfortunately, he realized too late that he made a miscalculation. Unlike Susie, the Don had a tail long and wide enough to match his size and with a single, painful swing, he could slam him aside and knock him onto the ground. "ANNOYING MONKEY! EAT LEAD!"

Kris quickly pushed himself up. "Ralsei, defend and protect, Berdly, shoot a lot!" He didn't have more time for more detailed commands, as the Don raised both his arms in opposite directions. One of his weapons, he aimed at Kris, the other at Berdly. Kris ducked under the weapon arm, ran closer to his enemy, re-summoned his sword and jumped up.

Already when pushing himself off the ground, he struck out to swing his sword with everything he had to bury it at least a bit into the arm that was already lowering itself his way. Berdly stretched out his pistols and fired again and again as if his life depended on it. And his bullets did hit the creature and penetrate his skin, but it was beyond unrealistic how sturdy Gatore was.

Before he could do much more, the Don's weapon was pointed at him and he pulled the trigger. Right as he did, the prince had swung his bright scarf around himself and Berdly, and used his magic to harden it. The bullets still got through, they were still painful enough for them to be thrown off balance and came with enough force to launch them back a bit, but they weren't nearly as strong as they could have been.

Hanging onto the hulk by his sword like before, Kris saw the Don raise a leg to try and kick him off. He swung his legs forward, let go of his sword and dropped onto the ground not far away and got back up as fast as he could. Not a graceful move, but he avoided getting kicked with the full force of that creature's leg.

He ducked away from the soon incoming gunfire behind a staircase. Those gatling guns were made of solid metal and longer than his actual arms. He figured the more they injured Gatore's arms, the slower he was with moving around the weapons mounted onto them. Kris did manage to hit him. Just not enough to do much. "ENOUGH!"

The Don finally made a decision on who to go for and turned around to pursue Kris. When the human realized that, he rushed further behind through a doorframe to the ground floor rooms below the right hand wing's upper platform. The frame was too small for Gatore to get through without tearing the whole thing down, so as soon as he was sure he wasn't at an angle where he could be directly hit, he had more brief commands to shout out to his already closing in party members. "Berdly! Ralsei! Jevil thing on the arm!"

While the enraged alligator was grabbing the upper side of a doorframe to rip it off along with the wall and floor above, Berdly and Ralsei exchanged a questioning look. "Jevil thing? Wait, Jevil thing!" He meant the routine they did every single time Jevil was done with one of his attacks. Before the mayor could pull away his arm or aim it their way, Berdly began to aim for it and Ralsei made sure his rifle was released one last time.

Only unlike with Jevil, they didn't so much fire their weapons one after the other, but at the same time. The back of Gatore's upper arm bursting open in a bloody explosion made him flinch enough to stop tearing open the ceiling to get to Kris, and the salve of bullets the prince sent his way only further tore open and deepened his wound.

The Don grunted, and apparently changed his mind on who to go for. He pushed through the pain of his heavily bleeding arm and swung both his weapons up to the bird and the prince. They fled up the stairs like Kris had before. And ducked, but even so, albeit softened by Ralsei's scarf, he did hit them a few times.

Below, Kris realized what kind of room this was down here. On a large table lay an enormous stash of plastic bags. Each one filled to the brim with what he could only guess was the same dust some of the Don's goons sold on the street. What Ralsei and Berdly needed more than anything, especially now, was a diversion.

He thought of something, but with the Don standing right next to the torn-open doorframe, it was almost as precarious as his last two maneuvers. He hadn't touched the lights since they set out to visit the Dealmaker. If he made one mistake, he'd have to start over from there. Even so, he had to try. He grabbed one of the dust bags.

Luckily for him, when Berdly and Ralsei drew Gatore's attention by inflicting a heavy wound on his right arm, he stepped away from it for a little. With a bag of dust in each hand, the human charged outside, past the alligator and only stopped when he was only just out of range for his tail to hit him. He dropped one bag on the floor and summoned his sword back into the hand he had carried it with.

Once the already weakened creature registered him coming back out enough to start turning around, Kris took this as his cue. He tossed one bag up into the air and when it fell back down simultaneously with the Don's face turning his way, he swung as strongly as he could with his sword starting behind him, downwards, and with all the momentum gathered on the way, upwards straight through the falling bag.

Cutting it open mid-fall and unleashing a cloud of dust that got both in his eyes and those of the alligator. He was taken a lot less by surprise though, so he had an opportunity to grab the other bag and run through the opposite doorway into the lower room there to put walls behind him and the Don again.

"MY DUST!" When the surprised giant was still busy rubbing his eyes and the prince was occupied patching up his and Berdly's wounds, something caught the bird's attention. Ralsei's gunfire had left little dents on the Don's right hand weapon.

The weapon itself wasn't indestructible. That gave him an idea. He ran to the end of the upper platform to look down past the railings and aimed his pistols down at Gatore's right hand weapon. Specifically the components that funneled the ammunition from the box that hung off his elbow, to the weapon he used to fire at him at Ralsei with before. He timed the circles on the reticle that appeared and pulled the triggers.

One of the metal bars deformed and burst open, with metal shrapnel flying everywhere, including right onto the Don himself. "WHAT?" The ammunition box only dangled off of his arm by the one remaining point it was being held from and the chain of bullets was severed. At least on one arm, he was going to run out of ammunition very soon.

The human on the other hand, ran straight towards the Don again. He was more confident in those dust bag stunts to work now. He threw the dust bag upwards and forwards the Don's way, and while running after it, swung with his sword downlow and upwards right at it again.

On his way, he was feigning the wrong angle, and when the beast raised his arm and swung down to try to crush him, still blinded by the suffocating cloud, the human had already made a sharp turn to the side and sprinted straight past him and back upstairs to the other two. His plan was to open his inventory to grab cake pieces to heal himself and the others back up.

But that was interrupted when something lit up. A bright red glow emerged from his chest. Strings of this red glowing thread connected to Ralsei's hands. He smiled and nodded. A little swirl of light in all colours of the rainbow formed around the prince's hand. When he stretched it up into the air, the light surged up from the floor and around all three of them. All the pain was going away. Bullets still stuck on them loosened and fell out.

Within a moment's notice, the wounds the three of them had sustained, were healed. Even their clothes and armor were restored. No cake necessary. "YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!" Now facing all three of them at once, the alligator wound his left arm around his right arm, grabbed the gatling gun by its barrel and ripped the rest of it right of of the arm that must have been growing numb from all the blood loss and grabbed it with his left arm to swing it up and past his shoulder.

With the ammunition box still attached to its end. He raised it again, and began swinging it around like a club or a morningstar. With a slow, but powerful swing, he hurled it right at them onto the upper floor. Staggering them just from how much the ground shook under the impact. Where it struck, it burst straight through the floor they were standing on and dragged the lower ceiling and anything that may have hung onto it with it to the room below.

While he did, something unexpected happened. Kris got a phone call, from Janice' number. While cowering together and bracing himself to dodge whatever attack might come next, he put them on speakerphone. "Lightners!" It was Pilot. "I'm going to need you to get out of that building and fast." They had to jump to the side just to dodge another attack. The Don's swings were slow, but each time they came, there was less of the upper floor left to dodge onto.

"Why?"

"Because that 'rocket' that took off is flying in a loop, it's a homing rocket, it's aiming for Gatore and it's coming your way right now. You've got to get out before you get caught in the crossfire." They had to jump to the side again. It was a good thing those weapons were so heavy and both his arms were injured, or else the Don wouldn't have been slow enough for them to evade his attacks so easily.

Nonetheless in sight of their limited time, Kris grew desperate enough to just start throwing his sword at the Don, re-summoning it and throwing it again. It was surprising how well a technique for throwing pens and pencils worked for aiming and throwing a solid metal weapon. It did work to throw off the creature, too. For a second, Gatore let go of his 'club' to reach for the sword that was heading for his face, right before it vanished. only to be thrown again. His right arm grasped the edge of the upper floor to hold onto it. The railing and the ceiling below crumbled under the force of his hand.

"What?" Berdly shrieked. "You can't be serious! How are we supposed to..." Kris tapped his shoulder and pointed at the outside wall. He immediately got what he meant, stopped pointing his guns at the Don and aimed for the corner between the floor and the outside wall instead.

Kris and Ralsei had to scramble to distract the Don and dodge another of those swings that rocked what little was left of the floor, because it took two explosions from Berdly's weapons to blow an actual hole outside. "Quick!" Before they could figure out some good timing, Kris jumped ahead and landed on his hands and feet. He had remembered that you could actually fall from much higher distances here than in the light world.

And once on his feet, smiled at the other two and waved at them to do the same. Ralsei trusted him enough to do it without hesitation. Berdly had to fluff up his feathers from how deep a breath he needed to take to muster the courage, but then followed him outside and out of the Don's reach.

Just in time, too, as while he was still falling, the mayor's torn-off gatling gun burst through the outside wall and wound up lodged against the more solid spot where the wall met the corners of the upper floor.

The Don's second weapon was stuck, but they could see from outside, while backing off, how the walls giving in indicated where the furious reptile was smashing his fists against it. "HEY! WE'RE NOT DONE HERE!" As a last resort, the Don, having climbed upstairs by now, or at least, onto the rubble that now united the upper- and ground floor, and tried aiming and shooting them through one of the holes in the wall with his remaining weapon. But with them having gained quite some distance as is Ralsei using his shawl to protect them was enough to ward off most of the damage from the bullets.

With the phone still running while Ralsei healed them, Pilot went on. "You've got to get out of there now!" The sound of the rocket drive was getting so loud it drowned out everything else. Kris took this as his signal to gesture for them to run further as fast as they could. And within mere moments from there, air currents raged across the area and almost dragged Berdly and Ralsei with them.

With a crash and rumbles that would go on for ages, thew tower had come back and crashed right into the building, digging its way into where Gatore and the three of them were less than a minute ago. Straight through the side of the roofless ruin and it kept sliding and crushing against itself as most of it bore its way through City Hall and its foundation further and further, until the front end of the tower finally came to a halt, several dozens of feet ahead of where City Hall ended.

Gradually, the noise settled. Dust from burst open and dragged-along walls and probably squashed stashes of 'dust' filled the air and settled much more slowly than the rumble. And even when things mostly calmed down, they could still hear the crackle from blocks and bits of pieces of either the ruin, or the tower that leveled some more of it, falling out and rolling off of the heaps.

All while calming down, catching their breaths, wandering along wide, smoothed out tiles. Kris couldn't help but wonder. "Is it over? Is he dead?"

Finally, Berdly could put away those guns and take a look at their new surroundings. "Let's hope he's not in-character, otherwise he might not be."

The area behind City Hall reached very far what must have long been the wall, back in the light world. Even though now a lot of it is covered in rubble from the crash, from only a few metres out of the back wing of City Hall, a long swimming pool stretched across two hundred metres all the way to a mansion and its garden far away on the other side. In the middle, it extended into a large, circular pool that surrounded the fountain they were looking for.

The semi-liquid darkness that flooded up looked so enormous from up close compared to what a distance Kris and Susie had to work from.

"In-character?" Of course Ralsei didn't really understand what they were talking about.

"Yes he...he's an action figure, okay? His character is a bionically enhanced super warrior who ran away from the military to open a bar. And only the broodiest, scummy criminals and mercenaries would visit his bar, because it's really big on bar fights."

"Brawls."

His head dropped a bit. "Yep. Brawls. That's why they're the brawlers. I used to think they were cool when I was really small. But crocodiles, lizards, dragons, other reptiles, they're all really horrible people. If you teach children how great reptiles are, you only set them up for disappointment when school comes around and they actually meet one."

What followed was an awkward silence. Kris stared at Berdly with a hard to discern look. "Kid and Jocks are reptiles too, you know."

"Well then, they'll have to do a lot better to make up for what..."

"LIGHTNERS..." Under whinging and struggling, a heavily wounded and bloodied alligator crawled out of the rubble in front of the side wing he was buried in. His trousers and suit only existed as small tatters, the ammunition belts wound around his cartoonishly muscular chest were long ripped off and he was still covered in bits and pieces from the tower. "THE FOUNTAIN! THE FOUNTAIN THAT WILL PAVE OUR WAY TO THE LIGHT WORLD! I WON'T LET YOU TOUCH IT."

Berdly could only mischievously grin at the Don. "How? You lost your guns." And he drew his own just to be sure.

"WHO NEEDS GUNS IF I CAN JUST RIP YOUR HEADS OFF!"

All of a sudden, with newfound strength and a terrifying speed, he got up and rushed straight their way with his mouth wide open. When he arrived, the three of them jumped back. He snapped right where Kris had stood before. If he had jumped back a millisecond later, he would have ripped his arm off.

Then he tried to grab him with his mouth again. He was aiming specifically for Kris. Then he just ignored Berdly's continuous gunfire and grabbed Kris with both hands to hold him in place. He opened his mouth wide and brought him closer. Either without even thinking about it, or by instinctively knowing what to do, Kris reached into the Don's mouth with his hand and summoned his sword right between the beast's jaws, with its blade pointing right onto his upper part.

Those jaws slammed together in an attempt to grab Kris.

Only that they didn't. Not completely. In trying to bite down on Kris, the giant reptile pushed the blade further into his upper head. He froze and shuddered. Kris immediately heard and felt him wincing and struggling for air. So much so, that he actually let go of him and took a step back to struggle to pull the sword out again. But you could tell from his fumbling that touching the sword only made it hurt even more. "ARGH! AGH KHAY HAR THAGH!" You couldn't even understand what he was saying any more. While the beast stumbled backwards towards the narrow pool of water, Kris, Ralsei and Berdly finally stood together again.

And now, the red light in his chest was glowing again. The strings of glowing power flowed and connected to Berdly's clown pistols. They exchanged a glance and both immediately had an idea of what was going to happen. "So it really did happen!"

Still with the stumbling reptile in his eyesight, Berdly pointed his pistols at him. This was do or die time. If they let Gatore pull that sword out now, he might just kill them after all. When he did point them at his target, two red dots appeared where he was aiming, as if his clown pistols had laser pointers. In multiple locations on Gatore's body, bigger and more slowly moving reticles appeared. Berdly just aimed for the first one he could find, and with the dots on the circle, pulled the triggers.

The circle and reticle accelerated, 'succeeded' and then vanished, but the others were still there, and a new one appeared somewhere else. "Berdly!" Kris shouted. "Smug Barrage!" As fast as he possibly could, with a speed and accuracy only a bird could muster, he aimed for one circle after the other and without thinking, hit as many of them as possible.

Out of desperation, he slipped into a kind of trance in which he wasn't focusing on one point any more and just keeping an eye on the big picture while moving those dots from mark to mark. He fired and fired and fired for his dear life. He didn't count how many of those circles he struck at the right time, but they were a lot until he missed for the first time.

But when he did, all others disappeared, and in every single location on Gatore's body, that he had struck the circle in, his skin bloated and that part of the beast's body exploded. All of them at once. Most of his entire front side blew up in rapid succession, in a smooth wave of very bloody, very gory explosions. Spraying blood and actual chunks of him all around. The combined force launched him back into the pool, where the soon lifeless creature's blood and entrails sullied the already dark waters.

Finally, he was definitely absolutely dead. They could all see his lifeless body with their own eyes. They were overcome with relief, much more so than when they were still a bit on edge just before. Kris was so glad, he let himself drop onto the pavement they were standing on by now.

Kris was relieved beyond measure. He didn't actually expect this to work. He already brought a knife to school at all times. He had to remember to pull it out more often. When he pushed himself back up, and the three of them got a little closer, a creeping cold snuck up their backs. Not in a bad way. It felt as if something about this fountain was really important. "I can't believe it's already over."

Berdly couldn't understand the prince's weird idea of how long they were supposed to be here. "Already?"

"We already made it to the fountain and I...Berdly, there's so much I wanted to ask you about Kris. What does he do in the light world? What's his favourite colour? What foods does he li-"

"Chocolate." He very bluntly interrupted the prince to answer as easy a question as this. "He eats that stuff up like crazy. Make him something out of chocolate and he'll never complain."

Kris wiped the last few bits of dust and alligator drool off his armor. "He's not wrong."

"Still. I hope I get to meet you again."

Berdly grinned. "Try to have it involve less homicidal reptiles next time."

And the prince smiled back. "I'll try."

Something moved, but it was too faint to really register for most of them. "I guess this is it. This is the part where we seal the fountain." The motion from before repeated itself, but a lot more strongly. "So how did you do it last time?" This time, the ground shook enough for none of them to able to deny it. "Geez, what is it this time?" Kris continued to stare at the fountain.

When he was there with Susie, they said goodbye to everyone they met before sealing it. Maybe they had to do that for it to work. With each time that the ground shook, it shook more strongly. And soon, Berdly hasted over to the distracted human. "Kris, this is you isn't it. Did you make a life-sized Susie plush and bring it to my room?"

Something like this was enough for him to snap out of it. "What? I mean no."

Looking back at him, the bird was frantic. A wide stare and strong, cutting gestures accompanied what he was saying. "Then WHAT. In the Angel's name. Is THAT?" Something came crawling up the city. Something big. Something so big, the front of its body was enough to cover the entire city, a lot of which they could see from up here. It was about as big as the cliffs from the ocean all the way up, except that it was one giant entity.

It had purple, scaly skin. An enormous, nigh-impenetrable brown mane hung off its head. Most of its body was covered in a long, dark grey-blueish jacket that was torn as much as its blue jeans were.

In many ways it did look like Susie. But it walked on all fours. It crawled out of the ocean and over the city. Its head still had the length of Susie's head, but Instead of having a face, the front of its head was just a big black hole. Most of its length was just comprised of huge unhealthy-looking yellow tusks and teeth longer than the head itself protruding out of it in random directions. And with drool dripping off of all of those teeth.

When it planted its 'hand' on the city, it must have crushed an entire block. Without moving its head much to do it, it gave a terrifying roar that could be felt in the air and overshadowed any sounds they heard before. Composed of all manner of disturbing sounds within it.

The comfortable cold in Kris' back had long turned into a sensation as though it was being torn apart instead. He just wanted to run away. But there was nowhere he could run where that thing wouldn't catch up. He did however recognize it. "Jaws! It's Jaws!"

Berdly grabbed Kris by what resemblance of a collar his armor had. "So it has a name and you know the name! I knew it, this is your fault somehow!"

It wasn't searching for anything in particular, but it was coming closer and closer regardless and trampling the city as it did.

From various locations outside the city and the outer parts of the city, helicopters and small fighter planes started rising up into the air and firing it from various angles. Getting fired at from the onboard turrets of flying vehicles did startle this 'Jaws', but it didn't do much to repel it. It just began swinging its claws at the choppers, too. "I can slow it down, maybe." Ralsei marched down the pool and away from the fountain."

"What about the fountain?"

The prince raised his hands up in the air and the familiar multicoloured glow appeared around them. "Don't worry about that. As long as I'm the closest darkner to it, it'll work! Seal it!" They saw the same glow manifest near one of the creature's claws. One of its hands was swiping right down at a plane and got caught in the glow. "Hurry, I can only slow her down!"

They quickly got to it. Or at least they would have if they had any idea how. Clueless as to what to do, human and monster stood at the edge of the pool. "So what now?"

Kris could only shake his head. "I don't know, I..." Then he felt it. He felt that same sensation that preceded the glowing of his soul in their fights with Gatore before. And there it was. In bright red light, he saw the red heart leave his own body, glide towards the centre of the black mass. And after a brief flash of light, emit a white light that engulfed first the fountain itself, then the pool, then the area around it, and then everything.

* * *

"Ouch! Argh!" Pain, everywhere. At the very beginning, it was pitch black. Then, expanding as a crassly visible circle with Kris and Berdly at the epicenter, the darkness vanished. Unlike last time with Susie, it wasn't dark after that. The windows were open and the sun was about to rise soon. But with its still faint broken light as he only source of light, blocked off by the window frames, the table and other furniture, they were still pretty damn confused.

Both Kris and Berdly felt themselves getting pinched by sharp, edgy surfaces everywhere. And the repeated buzzing sound from Berdly's alarm clock didn't make it any better. "Where are - wait, wait, wait - ah!" Berdly was right next to Kris at the start, but Kris felt the other toy box fall over, spilling all its contents onto the floor, and apparently, Berdly with it. Under wincing and aching he crawled a little further away and got up to finally reach that light switch.

"Berdie?" The timid voice of a confused bird girl came from outside the door. And slowly, the door opened to make way for a concerned little blue bird girl. In fact this was what really drew Kris' and Berdly's attention to it. They had their old colours back. They really were back in his room. Kris was yellow again and had his sweater back on. Berdly was blue like his sister and wasn't wearing a suit jacket and a Stetson anymore. "Berdie! Where you been?"

The exhausted bird just dropped his face and buried it in his elbow for a second. Then he took a deep breath and said: "File it under 'looking for Scott'."

Her face lit up. "Did you find him?" She didn't remember any of this, did she?

"Yes. Sort of, he's..." He looked around and immediately spotted him. He was nowhere near the toy box. The human-shaped plastic doll was sitting with his lower legs hanging off the edge of Berdly's desk. With Pluma's corresponding Debbie doll sitting right beside him. "Right over...there. How did he get there?"

Finally him and Kris got up and walked back to the table. Pilot, or more aptly, Scott was sitting there dressed fully in his Jevil-themed jester's costume, all the way to the cap. Right next to him, neatly folded together, lay the pilot's uniform he was supposed to be wearing.

"Scott!" The happy girl ran right into his room and grabbed all three. "And you got him new clothes, too."

Her brother's eyes narrowed. "Yes. I guess you could say that." But the most confusing thing they noticed, was neither of the dolls.

Pluma was already gone with her two dolls in her arm by the time Kris was staring at it. Next to where the two plastic dolls were sitting before, lay a card. A playing card that Kris recognized. It had 'J's in opposite corners and depicted a human in a court jester's costume. It was the joker card from the empty classroom in school. The very same one, from its design, down to the little crease in the upper right corner. "Berdly, this...I think that's Jevil. How did he get here?"

What was even stranger was that when he tried to grab it, it glided along the table, away from his hand. When he tried to grab it again, it glided away and as if blown up by a very inconveniently arranged current of wind which he could feel wasn't there, flew up in to the air, spun a circle and then flew straight out of the window. Upon watching all this unfold, he just took his hand down, and stripped his face of any particular expression.

As soon as that confusion wore off, the bird struggled to flip the fallen-over toy box back up and shovel all the building blocks and building block figures back inside, while keeping all the brawler figures out of it. Upon flipping it back up, he discovered something right under it. "Hey, Kris. I believe this is yours."

He handed to him a picture, hand drawn on a loose sheet of paper. And not just a doodle, a pretty advanced drawing, too. It was an inked sketch with some moderately filled in colours. With shading, folds in the clothing, tiny patterns to the skin where the jacket was torn, a lot of the hairs on 'her' head were drawn individually and in strokes far removed from the generic and easy to draw anime hair he expected. Drawing wasn't just a thing he picked up a week ago, Berdly could tell as much.

It depicted the exact creature that was trampling what was left of the city when they sealed the fountain. Standing on all fours on a field of green grass. With a tiny windmill next to one of 'her' 'little fingers' to highlight how enormous she was. Complete with that disturbing lack of a face with bigger teeth and tusks replacing it. And the name 'Jaws' was written on the back of the paper.

He could have made some long-winded joke at Kris' expense just based off this. There were multiple that immediately occurred to him. He grinned at Kris for several seconds with his head raised, seriously considering cracking them all at once. But all he said was. "Look, there's a lot of detail here, I get that. But - I mean the size and the tooth face. It's terrifying. The only genre I could file that in is horror. If you have to draw, please no more horror Susie."

He left it at that. He dreaded to think what it was like in the dark world version of whatever equivalent to a closet Kris had. "When did you draw that anyway?"

"Yesterday?"

"We were together the entire day yesterday."

"We weren't in most of the classes." Now he couldn't resist smirking at his classmate. No wonder his grades were no good if he spent all class drawing purple dragons. He didn't need to say as much. He knew, and he was pretty sure Kris knew that he knew. He knew Kris knew that he knew just from Berdly reminding him of the book from time to time.

He filtered all the collectible figurines that made up most of the brawlers and arranged them into one pile, dumped on top of the familiar action figure. Don Gatore's dark world form really was on-model. At least the version before they blew up his cannons and killed him. Another thing that caught their attention was the carpet in the middle of the room.

On it stood a plastic plane made of building blocks, a book on astronomy written by a famous astrophysicist and that contraption the skeleton had given to them the day before. Kris picked it up and turned it on. It emitted a long, golden ray that extended in one direction. It was the Hawk King's machine, the one that made that bridge that led them to the city.

While hastily tidying up the area at his toy box and removing as many brawlers as he could, in the upper area within the heaps of building blocks and figures in the box closer to the wall - in a location high up in the heaps that he could only assume this was the upper city - was a tea box from the middle east. Made of solid metal and sealed tight enough to require quite some force to open it. It contained a piece of paper, another drawing.

Drawn with a pencil and here and there, where necessary, it was coloured with a crayon. It depicted a man with white fur, dressed in a white suit, with a white shirt and a white top hat fitted onto his left horn through a hole in the hat. Sitting on an ivory throne, leaning with his face on his left hand and a walking cane as white as his clothes hanging off his right forearm by the curved end. It was pretty clear from the fur, the curved horns and the floppy ears that it was a boss monster.

He recognized Noelle's art style from how the clothes were drawn, but the face was indiscernible. She had scribbled over the face with a pencil. Very aggressively at that, the strokes reached all the way to the ends of the sheet. "Fifteen - The Devil?" Kris had walked up to Berdly and was reading the caption at the bottom of the picture.

"It's a tarot card, Kris. It stands for things like self-indulgence, self-pity, being manipulative, feeling like you're trapped or like what you want is being kept away from you by outside forces, or regressing into focusing on earthly pleasures or short-lived entertainment and a bunch of other stuff."

"You know that's Samuel, right?"

"Yes, I got that. Well, Noelle very obviously didn't want this if she threw it in with all the old building block toys. And after doing...that." He circled the Dealmaker's scribbled-over face. "And I don't want this guy anywhere near where I live. You can have him. You're the art expert here anyways."

"You know, since he had Asriel's voice, I could just rub all that out and draw Asriel's face onto him."

"I'm sure Samuel would appreciate that, but I really don't care."

Before they could further explore what could have been what on their trip through the dark world, the door opened and his alarmed sister came back in. "Berdie! It's - it's his Mom! You're late for school!"

"Oh god, the moment we're back in the light world, the light world problems start again. Quick! I'm not going to be tardy because of you." Kris was sort of helpless as to which of the many huge bags to sift through and what to bring along. "Just grab the most important stuff and leave the rest in the bags."

He found where his wider assortment of crayons and all the rulers and pens were he needed for drawing. He put those in his bag and otherwise closed them and brought them down the many staircases. It was a huge thing, carrying all those large sports bags back downstairs. Kris was used to this, but Berdly couldn't help but wonder what on earth Mrs. Dreemurr was thinking.

While Kris ran over to the fridge to grab the remaining ham sandwiches for reasons Berdly didn't question, he passed one of the mirrors and noticed something. He had to take off his glasses to confirm it. He didn't really notice, because they had the same strength, but those weren't his glasses. They were royal-blue-black, with Jevil's clown pistols, yellow spiky teeth, little lappets and yellow bells at their ends engraved and painted onto the frame.

During his trip through the dark world, apparently Jevil left him a little reminder that it had really happened, by swapping his own glasses for a pair of Jevil-themed ones. But time was too short to go back to search for his glasses. And he didn't notice the difference until now, so they were working for him just fine.

It was their last chance to check their bags on whether they had everything they needed. Mrs. Dreemurr's car would be too cramped for any of them to make major rearrangements, so they opened their bags and got to looking whether they had everything. In-between doing so, Kris paused. "Uh, Berdly. Just in case I don't get to ask later."

"Yes?"

Grand assortment of coloured pencils, check, blank and foldless sheets of paper, check. "So all the jokes aside. In the very beginning, before we saw more of the dark world and you didn't really believe in it yet, you kept saying me and Susie were 'wiggling things' in the closet, did you actually seriously believe that?"

Berdly had all the sheets with the answers they went through this whole ordeal to make. "Yes?" As well as all the books he needed for the other classes on the coming day.

"Why?"

Once he reassured himself that he had his calculator, his rulers and other writing utensils, he stopped and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "You know. Birds of a feather."

This had Kris stop his search for anything he might have forgotten. "Birds of a feather? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well you do have a lot of things...nevermind." Kris' mother was ringing the door bell more and more often.

His classmate stood behind, dumbstruck. "What do you mean we're birds of a feather?"

"It doesn't matter it doe-" She was keeping the doorbell running constantly at this point. They didn't have any more time for this. "Let's just get going."

For a second, the bird was worried about her panicking and doing something strange or extreme if they didn't open that front door for too much longer, so he urged Kris to rush downstairs to the ground floor with him. She did seem a bit worked up standing right in front of the door with mere inches between her and the door itself.

In fact, she must have been worked up for a long time, as she had dark rings under her slightly reddened eyes. Did she sleep at all last night? In surprising contrast to that, Berdly neither felt, nor looked tired upon inspecting himself and his new glasses in the mirror. Neither did Kris. At least not nearly as tired as they should have been considering they were awake the entire night. But she calmed down when she saw them arrive.

The slightly open frown quickly made way for a smile when the human followed him outside. "Good Morning, Kris. Good Morning." Nonetheless, loading all those bags back into the car, squeezing back into the car for Mrs. Dreemurr to drive them back to school made Berdly feel like normalcy was returning to his life at last.


	13. Inkheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kris and Berdly arrive back at school, Susie can immediately tell that they've been to the dark world, and forces them to recollect their adventure. Unfortunately for them, they have an unexpected audience listening in on their crazy story.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 01

Inkheart

* * *

The ride to school that followed an eventful journey through a modern city in a strange 'dark world', was awkward to say the least. Before she turned the key, Mrs. Dreemurr gave Kris a long lingering kiss on the forehead. "I'm so glad you're fine and well."

"I was only having a sleepover, Mom." That and the humming it came with made Berdly rather uncomfortable.

"A mother always worries." The hand-holding was one thing, that was always a good source for jokes. But how close were those two? Was that normal? There was no way this was normal. During their trip to school, cramped as it was Berdly used what little time he had to open up some of the sheets they had put together for the results on their group project and the paths that led to them.

He would have preferred if they had had another chance to go over them to make sure they were correct. But with sports bags full of stuff Kris didn't need pressing against him from multiple sides and all the distractions that came with a car ride, that was a waste of time. He was relieved when the fresh wind of an opening car door announced that he was free of the synthetic fabric rubbing against his feathers.

He kept it in when he saw - as she did every day - Mrs. D lead her embarrassed son into the school by the hand. He just folded up his arms and walked alongside them. After a long hug, she let go of him at last to head for her class.

Before they were even half-way at the door, Berdly stopped and forced Kris to stop with him. "Wait." When Kris stopped and turned his way, he was met with a very impatient stare. "We're friends now, right?"

He wasn't sure what this was about, so he raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Maybe? Right?"

"So you'd do me a solid if I asked you to, right?" He said nothing. "Right. Could you stop scaring Noelle? Just none of that sneaky grabby stuff anymore?"

So this was what this was about. "But it's fun."

Berdly sighed. "It's not fun." Him acting this way just confused Kris even more, enough to upset him. This was Mr. Smug, master of having laughs and jokes at other people's expense, and now he was telling Kris to cut out one of his favourite pastimes, at least one of the ones from whenever Noelle was around.

Perhaps it was time to take a page out of his own book from when he was in the dark world. Slowly, those corners of his mouth pulled up and twisted it into a wide grin. He slowly raised a finger at the bird. "You've never tried it yourself, have you?

The bird's eyes narrowed. "I can see right through what you're doing."

"So have you?"

"No I haven't. Oh god, you're thinking about doing it right now, aren't you?"

"I'm thinking about frosty hands."

That name however, threw Berdly off again. "Frosty what?"

Without further ado, he entered the classroom. Counter to his expectations, and unlike any usual school day for that matter, a certain easily angered purple reptile was already sitting at her desk in the middle. Tapping with her foot and not stopping when she saw him.

Berdly made sure to look at the black board and away from Susie. His trip through the dark world had left him with a little souvenir that he didn't have the time to replace. A pair of glasses. They worked just as well for him as his regular glasses, maybe even a bit better since they were new. But they were adorned with all manner of colours and decorations taken straight from a very memorable jester that he knew Susie had had a run-in with before.

If and when she saw it, she would surely recognize some of it and draw her own conclusions.

Whistling a melody he picked up on the radio as he strolled over to the windowsill. Noelle was resting on it with one leg, staring out of the window until she noticed him approaching. Noelle was a bit surprised to see them enter the classroom together like this without constantly being braced for banter or something of that sort from one another. Noelle smiled at him. "Good Morning. How did your group project go?"

Berdly wasn't sure how to answer this. "We're still alive. That's a plus." He made sure to take off his glasses, fold them and keep them concealed, and then sat down on the other side of the same window.

She covered her mouth and chuckled. "It couldn't have been that bad."

So far, so good. She got up to walk around her desk and sit down again. "Well we got all of them done at least." Before she could, he pulled out the solutions he and Kris had put together on the previous day and held them up to draw her attention and keep her standing right where she was. "What about you?"

Her eyes darted about in search of something to look at. And there was a lot to see, since she was looking either at him, or past him out of the window. "I'm afraid we didn't even finish half of them." Which meant they didn't go over them several times to check if they got it right either.

"That's a bit unlike you." Noelle was otherwise so thorough. It must have been Susie dragging it down. Maybe Berdly was a little hasty to call Kris and Susie birds of a feather. Maybe he was a lot better at this than she was. And thus a lot better than he gave him credit for. As for Noelle, it could only have been karma, that something now crept up to Noelle right now.

She reflexibly squeaked when all of a sudden, two ice cold claws grabbed her by the right shoulder and the left side of her neck. Like a swarm of large insects running their digits along it, a crippling dread took hold of her body. She froze in place, she panicked. She saw parts of her life flash before her eyes, especially when a torn, gaspy voice bellowed from right beside her face, into her ear, with its maw no more than two inches away from it. " _ **FRESH VENISOOON!**_ "

She screamed, it was too much for her not to. She gasped for air, stumped forward, landed with her hands on the windowsill, and turned around to face her attacker. But when she did, it was only Kris. With his hands wide open and raised up in the air after he had let her go.

He was laughing without making much noise, as he had gotten used to doing. But the fact that he was, was impossible to hide, so he made no efforts to. What she wasn't expecting though, was that from right next to her, Berdly was giggling right along with him.

She was dumbstruck. Berdly, laughing at Kris' inane pranks? He was always too aloof for that, but here he was. Beak torn into a grin and shoulders shaking. Did Berdly just distract her so Kris could sneak up on her, and now they were laughing at the whole thing, together? "What has gotten into you two?"

Once the laughter simmered down, her friend sighed and got up to head to his desk. "Okay, you win this one. That actually was a bit funny."

There was little time left for Berdly to spend on Kris' antics or Noelle's reaction to them. Physics, the subject their group assignment was in, was the very first class for the day, too, so he immediately submerged himself in going through the results one more time. Sure, if she wanted that, Noelle could risk a D or an E in case this project was seriously graded, but he didn't want to risk sullying his straight A streak.

He didn't notice what was happening until he heard a faint 'eek' from the table to his left. The blushing deer was trembling before a wandering shadow, the source of which would soon loom above the bird.

In his mind, he told himself to stay calm, and only slowly looked up into the unbearably smelly maw that was breathing down his way. Judging by the look of her eyes and the sideways born teeth, the purple beast above had not slept well whatsoever. An either visibly tired or angry, Susie slammed her hand down on Berdly's desk. "Nice glasses." she whispered with a menacing tone. "Where'd you get them? Ripped them off a clown?"

For a moment he was concerned. Then it occurred to him again. She was one step away from getting expelled as it was and except for Temmie and Kid, the entire class was here. And it wasn't whether faculty was too inclined to let things slide. She had long made herself unpopular with staff and students alike and a lot of people would have loved to see her go. She couldn't lay hand on him in this situation.

His beak deformed into a wide smile. "Funny you would say that. Yes. A clown gave them to me."

"How? Where?" She bent further down over him and he inched further down to keep his distance.

She knew. It was undeniable now that she knew. It was getting a bit much. Maybe he shouldn't try his luck too much after all. Time for his exit strategy. Good thing he had a decoy set up to get rid of her. "Well it was really tricky. I'm not sure either. I never would have made it without Kris' help. Maybe you should ask him."

And there those unclean teeth vanished behind those unsettling lips and she rose back up. It was working, she was backing off. With how much she was anticipating showing Berdly the dark world to gloat about it the day before, he figured she would be upset upon realizing that Kris visited the dark world again without her. But now, that was no longer his problem.

As he had hoped, she went back to her seat, in front of the human's, and slid around with her chair. She placed both her elbows on his desk and sat upright enough to reach a clearly taller height than him. "Hey there." She still sounded menacing, but a lot less so now that it was Kris she was talking to. "You got something interesting to tell me?"

Kris, in the middle of setting up all his drawing utensils that at least for today, he had no intention of putting away or swapping for anything, froze in motion the moment she came his way. And when she asked him, his eyes darted up to stare into hers for a few seconds. "Yes?"

She wasn't backing off though. "Shoot."

What in the world was she thinking? They were in a classroom full of people that would raise eyebrows if he started talking about falling into magical dark worlds through closets. He just began stammering. "Well..." He just had to stick to things that he could say without sounding crazy. While not moving one bit, his eyes stared to his right, onto Snowy. "...doing that project together, it did get pretty dark."

When he realized from where Susie was looking, that she didn't get the hint, he subtly nodded to his right, and then his left, where Catti and Jocks were. "...then we listened to some music and watched a dance." Immediately upon hearing this, Berdly leaned to the left of his chair, turned around and glared his way. Even behind several layers of vagaries, he still didn't want Kris talking about his closet.

Kris just ignored it and stared over to Noelle. Susie was starting to follow his eyes and picking up on what he was telling her. "...then things got really difficult though. We almost didn't make it. But in the end, we went through it all guns blazing."

Those vertical pupils of hers widened just a bit. With her elbow still on the desk, she brought one hand closer and pressed one claw into his chest in her usually painful manner. "Empty classroom, after classes. Him, too." She pointed at Berdly with her thumb.

When she took that claw back, Kris sighed and nodded. Her hips stirred with a faint chuckle, and she grinned down at him. "Weirdo." You could tell how comfortable she was, with how she refused to get up to turn her chair back to the front and instead, shuffled around her own weight leveraging herself on Kris' desk. With no regard for how loud she was being or how she was misaligning his desk in the process.

Just like on the previous day, when Physics class was about to start, with Berdly having his and Kris' fully worked out answer sheets ready and on his desk, their clumsy teacher came nigh-stumbling into the classroom.

Once class and teacher were done greeting each other, and she was about done placing the things she needed for class on her desk, she clapped her hands and sighed. "I've got good news - or uh, bad news depending...I've looked over yesterday's new group project sheets and uh - I'm not sure what she - I must have made some mistake."

Oh goodness. He hoped this didn't mean what he suspected that it meant. "The pro- the problems in your worksheets were way too many and some of them way ahead in your material. It wouldn't be fair if I graded them - so uh...joy!" She haphazardly spread her arms and tried to elicit applause. There was a cheer coming from a few desks. "I mean if you actually tried to solve all of those I'd be happy to look them over. But if you didn't, it's no big deal."

It was then, that Berdly either purposefully, or as a knee-jerk reaction, lost all hold in his muscles and dropped the side of his head onto the open-and-ready notebook on his table. Kris - at least on the outside, didn't react at all. He just remained completely still. Even though he felt the same way as his project partner felt. The all-nighter, all that work, searching for his sister's doll, overthrowing a foreign ruler in Berdly's toy box.

Possibly unlike the rest of class, they made all this effort, but were denied the fruits of their labour. And thus, their struggles were in their entirety invalidated. It felt a bit like finishing the kind of video game that was a fad for a time, where the hero would struggle his way towards working miracle after miracle, each greater than the previous one and save the world, only for the story to deny him the girl in the end. All, as he was explained later, to appeal to a misled notion of 'deep storytelling' or to pander to contemporary politics.

You would play it all the way to reach the end, or in his case, watch your brother do it, and wind up asking yourself: Why did the hero bother doing any of it? He should have just watched the world burn. At least he would have gotten some relaxing entertainment enjoying the show.

Kris was already considering spending some time drawing instead of paying attention to class on this day. At this point he wasn't intent on wasting a second on school material at all any more. Mrs. Alphys collected what little answer sheets there were to be had early on and was surprised enough by Berdly's and Kris' effort. Especially when Berdly was asked about it and said that Kris contributed as much to it as he did.

Surprised enough to leave the human to his own devices, which he welcomed. He had a wide assortment of tones for each colour ready, too. His Mom was at least to a harmless degree, aware of his and Asriel's hobby and had packed all the colours he needed in her excessive preparation for last night's sleepover.

He already knew of a few things to draw, so he got right to it and concentrated on that. The first thing, to warm up, was a comparably simple sketch of the cliffs. With those back-and-forth wiggling pollen-like things he and Susie saw in the dark world, the smooth, but uneven cliff walls, and Lancer hiding in a shadow up high and shooting spade symbols at them.

The second thing, was to erase what he had to, in order to undo what Noelle had done to her discarded 'The Devil' card, fill it again with what parts of the background he had to erase, and then complete it very carefully by giving him Asriel's face. And imitating what little of her art style he could discern while he did it.

And to match the character it depicted rather than the person he was modeled after, he gave him an evil grin and a tired, dismissive gaze in his eyes directed straight at the viewer.

He had another thing in mind to do after giving Samuel his face back, but it had to wait. Like all classmates that had their desks in front of each others', Susie sat only a step away from the front of his desk. And even from where the imposing dragon sat, she towered high enough over him that he would have had to bend to the side to see most of the black board. Like he always had to, sitting in the back like he did.

And today, occasionally, at far-apart moments, she would slowly turn around and sneak a suspicious glance his way, as if she was checking whether he was still there. After the first two classes, she stopped. Even beyond that, she looked a bit more relaxed in general. Where did she think he was going to go? Then again, it didn't matter.

When the coast was clear, he took a book appropriate for the current class and big enough for his purposes. He placed it standing upright by its edges to ward off unwanted attention from a certain univited onlooker. That gave him at least enough time to cover his next piece should she turn around or get up.

The reason he was paying enough attention to Susie to pick up on all these things, was because the next thing for him to draw, was her. Not Susie herself the way she sat there, but the way he remembered her from two days ago. The way she looked in the dark world. With the way her scales looked there, the unusual hair colour, the clothing.

He spent more time getting the 'Devilsknife' right than any of the clothing. The curved, scythe-like axe Jevil had given her upon disappearing. And he was all the more happy to not have been caught by the easily provoked model to this work, in spite of him having gotten carried away and focusing entirely on the drawing most of the time. Had she turned around in all that time and flipped or looked past the book, who knew what her outburst would have entailed.

As for the two to his left and right, Jocks and Snowy, throwing them off was easy. They long ceased paying attention to him since the other two pieces weren't interesting to them and they had no way of connecting her to the color scheme he was going with, so all he had to do, was to keep something more inconspicuous on his desk and right on her face.

He took a lot longer than with the other pieces, and made more of an effort in adding and redoing details, but in the end, he looked upon his work with satisfaction. In the end, relieved that nothing bad had happened in the time it took to make it, he turned it around.

And like with all his drawings, he took a pencil, found a location where it would either not show on the drawing itself, or be hidden by the dark background, and with added strokes to each line to make it stay, wrote the name he gave it on its back. He called it 'Axe'. Once he was done and Axe was safely stowed away, he gave in in to the fatigue that unexpectedly caught up with him without a hint of shame, and spent the rest of class sleeping.

When the bell rang and the last class was over, Berdly made sure to pack his things and get out of here. Fast. But he wasn't fast enough. By the time he got up, the dragon was no longer behind him. She was in the hallway, leaning against the lockers with her hands in her pockets hair hanging over her eyes.

But her body and head were unmistakably angled to face him. If he did something extreme like open the window to climb outside that way, she would dash his way. The only way out was to join the crowd of leaving students and navigate past her that way. Unfortunately, that plan didn't work out either.

While he was marching between Catti and Snowy, she simply forced her way to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hey there." She smiled. "Wanted to talk about something before you go." He tried ignoring her and pulling himself free, but her grip on his shoulder was so strong that he simply couldn't.

With narrowed eyes, he stared up to where he expected hers. "You're not going to let me go, are you?"

She paused for a bit to wait a little more for the students and Mrs. Alphys to move along further, before she opened her mouth and showed him her teeth again. "What do you think?" After a few more seconds of listening and watching the others leave the classroom, she let go of his shoulder, only to grab him by the throat pulled him back. "That's an interesting pair of glasses. And I want to hear all about it."

"Stop - stop!" In his struggles to break free, Berdly didn't notice that she was holding him tightly enough to carry him and merely keeping him at his original height. When she did lift him up, he stumbled and lost hold of the ground. His struggles annoyed her enough to drop him again and hold him by one hand. She wound up dragging him across the floor by his calves. "It's a long story, Susie."

"I got time."

Grasping onto her hand with both of his own, he struggled for air. "It's a love story."

"Could be political drama for all I care." Susie was the kind of person that had a radar. And Noelle was the kind of person that wasn't on it. So neither the dragon nor the bird really paid attention nor noticed the doe watching aghast as the big purple reptile dragged her struggling captive to the desk right behind her own, and pulled two chairs closer to sit next to the slumbering human.

The bird kept protesting between wheezes. "I'm pretty sure there's some political satire in there, too."

She just grunted right back. "Wouldn't have guessed otherwise with nerds like you two."

Once she was seated comfortably on her chair, the wrong way round so that she could run her arm around the lean in front of her she reached for Kris with her other hand and flipped over the book to drop on his face. "Morning, sleepyhead. Wish I could sleep well like you. But I hear you've got a good story to tell to help with that." She chuckled in her usual disturbingly low-key manner. "Seriously, sleeping through class. What a freak."

Now at last free from her grasp, but well-knowing he couldn't up and leave, Berdly talked back at her again. "You do that too, you know."

"Shut it, nerd!"

For a moment, the human gave off a disapproving groan. Then he remembered who it was that had just done this, stopped, and instead raised one finger in a gesture meant to say to give him more time to wake up properly. By the time he was done rubbing his eyes and opened them, Noelle had already snuck out of the classroom.

Barring him, Berdly and Susie, all of which sat around his desk, it was empty. He kept running his hands down both sides of his face to help himself wake up for good. "Would you believe me if I said we were looking for a plastic doll, fell into the dark world, beat Jevil and he gave Berdly a pair of guns that turned into a pair of glasses?"

Those yellow eyes kept staring at him, but ever so slightly, her expression eased up. She turned around her chair so she could lean back with her arms folded up. "I wouldn't like what I'm hearing, but I've seen weirder stuff. Keep talking." And so he did.

He began retelling the tale of everything that happened to them up to this point. Starting with their group project and Berdly's sister looking for her doll. Then Berdly finally agreeing to opening his closet, only to fall through its floor and for him to go after him.

When he got half-way through their first encounter with a darkner and was describing what Berdly immediately recognized as Christmas Town, the bird cut into his story. "Can't we skip that part, it's not really important."

"It's still part of the story. It's where we meet Jandsome!"

Susie began to grin enough for her teeth to show. "Now I just want to know all the more."

Kris looked back at her and shot her a gently slow pistol hand. "That's exactly what I keep thinking every time I ask him about it."

"Screw you two!" Berdly usually wasn't vulgar enough to have to censor himself like this, this closet of his really struck a chord with him.

Without saying anything, Kris opted for a compromise and told Susie that they were 'people' that danced and made music without mentioning that they were flowers or red roses. And after that, his narration went a lot smoother. He told her a long tale about shark- and reptile punks and bikers, dressed up as formally presenting gangsters, overconfident magical eagles.

And a police force that couldn't enforce the law, because one of said gangsters was the new mayor of the city and made sure to shut down any attempts of them to do so. Put in place by 'the Knight' himself, possibly the same one he and Susie vaguely heard of in the Card Kingdom.

And of course, the thread that held it all togther, a tale of two lovers who were made and meant to be with each other. Who were happy, until one was about to push what they had a little further, and ran away out of sheer fear of how much it could devastate him, should his beloved against all odds, reject him. Only that he didn't truly vanish. He merely hid his sadness behind a mask made of pranks and jokes and japes at the expense of other people.

And yet from behind his disguise, acting smug and aloof to hide what lay behind it, he joined them as they accompanied his beloved, and wound up leading her on a wild goose chase until, after going as far as fighting and besting a homicidal clown familiar even to Susie, Janice broke from their approach.

And instead of their aimless routes, she sought to make a deal with the devil himself. "LUXON?" Susie near shouted while bracing herself with her hands clasping her chair immediately upon hearing that name. Then she noticed how she was coming across and laughed it off. "I mean that's a weird name. So what about him?" Kris went on, but Susie was only half-way listening at this point. She had to control herself enough to not grasp her friend's shoulders instead of her chair.

So that slimy creep Dr. Luxon was pulling one on her after all. He was real. It wasn't a dream. Not entirely at least. Kris very carefully rummaged through his bag, looking out not to make Axe visible at any given time, while searching for Sam, and then placed him on the table.

When he did, she was absolutely sure it wasn't a dream. That was him. Sure, he had a face now, where he had a torn-and-twisted something before, but Kris admitted that he made that change during class. But she recognized him by the clothing and the demeanour that his pose implied. That was definitely him. That was the snarky wannabe-psychiatrist from her 'dream' last night.

And upon hearing the story progress, past the destruction wrought by the giant alligator as soon as Mr. Luxon opened the floodgates, when they got to Berdly's sister just disappearing and asking an all-knowing hologram how and why, things began to make more sense to her. So you could just dream your way to the dark world.

But your thoughts determined where you went. But if Dr. Luxon and his hotel were in Berdly's toy box, no wonder that Samuel was so confused that Susie wound up in there. Now she was just as confused and intrigued herself. But for now, she just figured that it was because she wanted a dark world adventure, and Canyon City when Kris, Ralsei and Berdly were there, was where there was one to be had.

And soon after that, the lovers were reunited, and after a final act of chaos on the part of the jester, they faced off with the mayor and brought him to justice. "So I only just managed to make him stumble back a bit, and then that red soul thing happened again. It made Berdly use his Smugshot a lot of times at the same time, so I called it the Smug Barrage. Berdly used it to kill him, and then we made it to the fountain and sealed it."

That was at least where Kris was trying to end the story. Going by the look on Berdly's face, his classmate didn't quite agree. "Kris. That's not the whole story and you know it. We covered the closet, so we're not skipping past 'Jaws'."

Kris froze. The anticipation of a predator who had just caught its next meal filled the dragon's eyes. She didn't know what 'Jaws' was yet, but if it was juicy enough for Kris to leave out on purpose, she was interested. "What's - uh - what's 'Jaws', Kris? I'd love to hear that one."

He just scrambled to somehow walk his way around it. "It's - uh a giant creature with big teeth. But by giant, this time, I mean she's - she's several times as big as the whole city."

The anger in Berdly's voice over including the cliffs that were his closet wouldn't let up. "I know for a fact you have her with you. A picture says more than a thousand words, Kris. Why don't we let her take a look herself?"

He froze again, and his eyes moved over to Susie, who didn't seem intent on letting up either. In fact, she shook her head. "I'm not letting you get up from that chair until you showed me what this 'Jaws' thing is." While she said this, his breathing accelerated. A lot. And other than that, he didn't move. He just stared at her. "Sheesh, calm down." She hung her head down a bit and grinned. "Come on, it can't be that bad."

It did nothing to calm him down. "Come on!" When she reached for his bag, he obliged and opened it himself to pull out the drawing and then very, very hesitantly place it on the table. "Oh." Upon giving it a look, she immediately knew it. Not the drawing itself. But she immediately knew what inspired it.

Any smiles and grins slowly faded out of her face. A creature so huge, its little finger dwarfed a windmill next to it several times over, with nothing but teeth for a face. Imposing, and yet familiar. She recognized herself by her colour, her jacket, her shirt, and her hair. Her face stiffened up at the thought that this was her.

She thought it was funny at the time. Now she regretted it. She really got to him a lot more than he let on, didn't she? This was what she must have looked like to him, when she brought him up to her teeth and threatened to mangle him. "Did you - did you make this?" He wasn't looking at her, at least not as far as she could see through his hair, but the pace of his breathing didn't ease up. He was trying to not look afraid.

That was Kris. Always the freak with the weird face she couldn't read. Most of the time. He had the kind of face he could with, but she could tell how agitated he was. It was different from she pressed him against the lockers and all he had for a reaction, was to lazily hang his head down. "You did, didn't you?"

She swallowed her own spit. She felt like apologizing. She wanted to say she was sorry. But that wasn't her. That wasn't 'Susie'. That was okay with Kris, but Berdly would have only gotten the wrong idea.

She snorted. Maybe another time. For now, she had to stop that awkward silence she let settle down on them. She pretended to burst out laughing so much, she had to hold her stomach. "Looks like you went all out with this one. Look at the detail! Got to say, you really captured my smile." She jokingly bore her teeth at him.

That was enough though. "But...let's get serious. So you guys are telling me that if we ever make it to the dark world again, as long as that piece of paper exists, a giant monster that looks like me but several times bigger than that big city could attack us any time?"

Both boys shrugged. "Looks like it."

Now with a much more eased-up mood again, she nodded while pouting. "Anyone else think that's a problem? No-one?" They nodded. "Problem?" She leaned forward. "Solution." She grabbed the drawing, crumpled it together, put it in her mouth and ate it. It tasted - it was hard to think of a way to describe it. But even paper drawn on with ink and coloured with coloured pencils as dinner still beat having nothing for dinner like she expected to.

Well, nothing and trash. It wasn't food, but at least it wasn't literal trash. "There. No more giant Susie monsters to worry about. That a deal or what?", she mumbled with some of it still in her mouth. And thus, that easily, Jaws was no more.

Once she shock wore off, perhaps to appease her, perhaps for another reason, Kris ducked again and pulled up another drawing to show both of them. A much more simple sketch. "Hey!" For Susie at least, it lightened the mood immediately. "That's Lancer up there!" It was a shot from the cliffs during Kris' and Susie's adventure. It was only Lancer's silhouette directing down the spade symbols that passed him, but the silhouette was all she needed to recognize him.

"It's the cliffs. Berdly... You know, the supply closet right here in the school."

The bird's eyes narrowed. "Okay. I'm starting to get the picture. I guess those are the purple walls." Then his finger drifted up to point at a lengthy object with a sphere attached to its top that was tilted to the side, a curved line along the tilt indicating movement. "...those would be the things that wiggle.."

He looked up at Kris with a grin and then moved on. "It looks a bit like some type of fungus to be honest...wait what's that?" He was pointing at a blob with something that could vaguely be construed as a face with closed eyes and a closed mouth.

This time Susie picked up on it. "You just touch them and they..." She followed this up by making an exploding motion with her hands. They were running out of stuff to talk about. "Hey, Kris. Got any more stuff to show?" He shook his head. One Susie drawing was more than enough. Besides, he didn't want her to eat Axe, too. "Right." Slowly, silence took hold between them again. "So where does that leave us? What did we learn about the dark world from this? You know - other than stuff I already knew."

Berdly was a lot less nervous by now as well. He was resting with his arms on the desk and no wrinkles or other signs of making a face. "For one, closets. We've got to believe in the absurd here. You and Kris fell into the dark world through a closet. Same goes for me and Kris when it happened to us. Closets are the common denominator. So closets can be used as portals to the dark world."

"So wherever there's a closet, there might be a way to the dark world."

"Yep. Then dreams. If Pluma was in the dark world while she was just dreaming, then others could dream their way to the dark world, too."

Susie started laughing nervously. "Okay. Didn't think of it that way, but sure."

"As long as you're there at night at least. Then there's art. If Jaws was any indication, any drawings or other pieces of art show up in the dark world as what's on them. Not even just what's really there, but what's supposed to be there. In the end of the day, Jaws was just a detailed sketch with some very faint colouring.

But the Jaws we saw in the dark world looked very, very real. Jacket looked real, skin looked real, hair looked real. So they're not just some ink or graphite projection. It's whatever the artist was picturing in their mind that becomes real in the dark world."

"Okay?"

"That's about it I think. Knowing all that is useless of course. At least I hope it is, because there's no way we'd stumble onto three dark world portals, right? If it can just be any closet, the chances have got to be tiny. It was interesting while it lasted." He sighed and got up.

Susie had heard everything he could tell her, so there was no reason for her to force him to stay any longer. "But it's something we can put behind us now. If it's just any closet it can happen with, let's be realistic, there's no way it'll happen a third time."

Susie slowly lowered her head upon processing it. She tried to laugh it off. "Yeah, who knows. Maybe." But when Berdly was behind her, her smile began to fade. "Hopefully." She looked back up at Kris. "Hey." She subtly nodded towards the exit door. "You can go, too if you want. I'm not keeping you." He hesitated, but he followed suit.

When he already had gotten up and was walking past her, she changed her mind, reached for his shoulder and kept him in face by force. "Wait." She brushed her hair aside to look him clearly in the eyes. "I don't know if it's going to happen again, but if it does. If you find another portal to the dark world. Don't just go off on your own. Tell me. I want to come, too."

He froze for a second. "How?"

"Oh, right." The realization coaxed a twitch out of her. She laughed. "You couldn't if you wanted to, right?" She got a pen out and tapped at Kris' bag to get him to pull out a piece of paper. She wrote down her phone number. "Here. There you go." Not her cell phone number, she didn't have one of those. Her home's landline number. It wasn't much, but at least there was some way of communicating. After that though, they said their goodbyes with a smile.

* * *

It was already strange, passing by Noelle on his way outside, but Berdly was a bit more put off when he realized how desperate to catch up Kris was, running after him and down the stairs outside the school building. It was strange, but it was Kris. Strange was part of the program with him. It was best to just brush it aside. "You saw Noelle in the hallway too right? She wasn't listening in on us, was she?"

While catching his breath, his classmate pulled off his bag. "No idea. I wanted to show you something." He began to whisper. "I didn't want Susie to see it. Because - you'll get why."

Hearing this only earned Kris a look of disapproval. "If you don't want her to see it, maybe not show me right here." He subtly pointed to the west of the building, where the window in the back of the classroom was. "She's right over there, you know?" Kris luckily saw what he meant. They agreed to take a seat at QC's Diner instead. They just had Kris order a glass of water to justify taking seats there. "So what is this thing you want me to see?"

Kris sifted through his bag and placed another drawing on the table. Bigger than Jaws, Noelle's discarded 'The Devil' card or that little sketch. Bigger and much more detailed. So thoroughly coloured, it was as if the drawing was digital, but he could feel on his feathered fingers that it wasn't. It had smooth shading and close attention to detail. "Geez, you really went all out on this one."

He already knew as much after seeing Jaws, but now he was absolutely certain that this book on drawing dragons wasn't lying around somewhere unused. Kris must have been doing art as a hobby for a long, long time. The drawing depicted a predatory creature. Judging by the snout, a dragon.

Her arms and overall any skin that laid bare, glowed against the dark, spade shaped arcs in the background in bright magenta. Black leather bands with golden spikes adorned her strong upper arms and forearms. Her eyes barely visible under the enormous dark red mane. She wore a vest so long, it was more like a coat. Even though it obviously wasn't a coat, because it didn't have any sleeves.

A big golden, heart-shaped belt buckle held together her too wide, dark red trousers, the lower half of which were in their entirety stuffed into black boots that reached half-way up to her knees. She had such a grin on her face, she was practically glowing. Putting her imposing, yellow jaws on display.

And she had something like a scythe in Jevil's blurple-black-lime colours and with one of his signature bells hanging off a lappet on its back. But its blade was too short for it to be a full-fledged scythe like you would expect a farmer to use, and the blade and grip were too long for it to be a sickle.

"Is that...", he finally asked. "...is that a brawler?" The first thing he thought of, were the reptilian and aquatic punks, bikers and other thugs they met on their trip through the dark world. They all had attire resembling this. "A female brawler with a scythe?"

Kris' expressions were always an enigma to the bird, but he could tell that he was upset from how long he was staring at him before he finally answered. "No, it's Susie."

Well that was disappointing. He was really impressed for a second there. "It looks nothing like Susie." At least that explained why he didn't want Susie to see it. "I mean I get it, that is definitely her face. But everything else, the colours, the..."

"It's the way she looks in the dark world. You weren't blue there either."

"Hm." Berdly pouted. "Okay." That explained the clothing and the messy mane, too. The messy mane in which so many of her hairs were drawn individually. He must have put a lot of effort into making this. Much more than with Jaws. All the more so, everything about this 'Susie' he was looking at was off. Not by much. Barely at all, but everything was off by a little.

He was pretty sure her arms weren't quite that wide. Even if he assumed the perspective it was imagined from to be Kris' height, she seemed a little too tall. Her mane was just as messy as Susie's but he could have sworn it was a bit longer than hers. As for her proportions, her legs were ever so slightly wider even through the awkward trousers, and her chest a teensy bit more imposing.

This 'Susie' looked little bit stronger to him than the real one, and she had a modicum of attractiveness where the original simply had none as far as Berdly could see. To best put the overall impression he got into words, this 'Axe' was an in every respect slightly improved version of Susie. Not an accurate depiction of what she really looked like.

But he didn't want to be too mean, so he decided to skip bringing up most of that and instead pointed to the right of 'Susie's coat. "What's that?" It was the tip of her tail, curved in a way in which you only could if your tail was long and developed enough for you to be able to consciously move and bend it around. "What's with the tail?"

He just gestured onto the picture with an open hand. "She's a dragon."

Berdly rolled his eyes. "Yes, but her real tail is so short, half the class isn't sure if she has one. I have no idea if she has one. It's definitely not as long as this." He paused to look back and forth between the drawing and the person who made it. "I mean you sit right behind her in class. Did you actually look at her when you made this?"

Kris' head moved a bit back, and he began to look down. Not at the drawing, just generally down at the table and not at Berdly. "No. Not really. I sort of got carried away and just drew from memory."

He made THIS from memory? He took coloured pencils and made something with them that was so sophisticated, it might as well have been concept art for a film or a video game? If it was there, which it obviously was at this point, why didn't Kris put any of this resourcefulness into his school work? Putting this into perspective, the bird tried reading the expression on the human's mouth.

Then slowly, he raised his head just a bit and smiled. "Hm, okay. Either way, whatever you do, don't destroy it or anything. I can see you put a lot of work into this one. Who knows, even if Susie found out, you might actually walk out of it alive." Leaving it at that, Berdly got up from their niche and snickered all along the way out of the diner.


	14. Sin and the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noelle overheard a confounding conversation about things she couldn't imagine to be real, and hopes to find out more in her hopes of getting closer to Susie.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 02

Sin and the Dark

* * *

What in the world was Noelle hearing those three talk about? She had stayed near the doorframe and listened to the entire conversation Susie, Kris and Berdly had had after school. She was mostly waiting to spend time with Susie to show her her tarot card set. She listened in because she wanted to know what was so important and related to those three in particular. What about talking to Kris and Berdly was important enough for Susie to forget about her?

She expected some kind of blackmail or another project or maybe Kris and Berdly helping Susie with the discarded project's problems. Instead, she eavesdropped on a lengthy conversation on light worlds and dark worlds, fighting come-to-life toys and playing cards, special magic attacks, comedians with godlike powers, people that fit into medieval fantasy stories meshed together with fifties or late fourties noir and all of it being talked about as if it had really happened.

What was this? It must have been a game of some sort. Some kind of advanced tabletop or other role playing game. But could it? Would Susie actually play something like that? Would Kris? Maybe it did with Berdly, but this didn't seem fitting with either as far as she knew them.

But she didn't hear them ever differentiate themselves from the characters they presumably played if that was the case. Unless they were in-character throughout this whole conversation. Or they 'were' the characters and just 'played themselves'.

She didn't have to eavesdrop. She knew that. She could have just walked in and asked what they were talking about. But she was scared. What would she even say? Where would she start? She would just scramble to find the right words and Susie would have gotten more and more impatient over her interrupting them. Well at least their sudden get-together eventually came to a conclusion.

And there was more that added to her unease. Not only was Susie willingly spending time with them after school, but judging by how she dragged Berdly back in against his will and surprised Kris while he was still asleep, she was forcing them to stay. But time was running short. Kris and Berdly had already rushed past her through the hallway.

She clasped onto her bag, closed her eyes, opened her mouth to take a deep breath and then made a conscious effort to take a more solid stance. She had to find out what kind of roleplay this was, but getting involved in that was for another time or another day. For now, there were her tarot cards.

She sneaked closer to the door, ran her hand along the grip. Careful to not make any sudden moves, she pushed it open just enough to meekly peek inside through the gap. Her first attempt at saying hello only came out as a squeak. Susie was lying with her arms behind her head, on a makeshift lounge chair made up of her own chair, Kris' desk and the back of Kris' chair. "Hello?" That was enough to cause her to stir.

She immediately raised her head and spun it around to see whether it was a teacher. When she saw who it was, she nodded in her general direction. "Oh, hey."

Noelle wasn't sure what to do. "I...uhm..." She paused to push the door a little further open and at least walk inside. "I wanted to know if...I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd get caught up talking with Kris and Berdly for so long."

"Why, what's up?"

She blushed while trying to get to the point, and then waved it off again. "I - I'm sorry if I'm taking up your time, you probably have somewhere to be."

"Not really. Just spit it out. What's going on?"

"I promised I'd bring my tarot cards today. I have them with me."

Now, Susie was at taking those shoes off of Kris' desk at last and actually sitting upright to turn Noelle's way with her chair. "Oh right." She laughed. "I totally forgot about that."

She took a nearby chair and shuffled to her desk. "It's all right. This 'dark world' business sounded very exciting."

The one eye not covered by Susie's hair sprang wide open. "You were listening..." she whispered. Then she caught herself whispering and spoke aloud. "Ah I mean uh - how much of that did you hear?"

Oh no, what was she doing? What if she was going to have to explain to Susie that she was eavesdropping on them, and why? She basically already admitted it. All she could do now was try to brush it aside. "Oh goodness, it all sounded so confusing. You were all so in-character - but as yourselves? I'm not sure if I understand what exactly it is. Did you start playing some kind of roleplaying game, or...wait is it one of those ay ar gees?"

"A what now?" What a relief. Susie did look a bit more disgruntled, but at least she managed to change subjects away from 'I kept the door open with a doorstopper and eavesdropped on your entire conversation'. "What's an ay ar gee?" Noelle tried out stammering a haphazard explanation on what an alternative reality game was, comparing it to a more complicated scavenger hunt with fictional lore that you pretended was real, all to discover secret after secret until you eventually solved it all.

"Yeah - yeah, something like that. We tell each other stories with riddles and try to solve them afterwards. I mean it's better than being bored all day right? So I thought why not?"

If Noelle's face wasn't trembling before, it was now. Whenever she wasn't talking, she was trying to hide her buck teeth behind her lips. "It - it sounded very exciting for you. I'd love to partake in it."

Susie backed off slightly and laughed. It sounded forced. "I'm not sure it works that way. It's - "

Noelle realized it. It felt a bit like something was pulling her heart out through her back, but she had to face it. Susie wasn't comfortable with this. So it was better to rip that band-aid off. Before the dragon could be pushed away any further, she interrupted her. "I'm sorry - forget I asked. I'm sure you want something to play among each other."

Hearing Noelle voice her willingness to keep out of it did make the dragon relax and lean back in her chair. Within a moment's notice, she had her cool back. "Hey, that's not what I mean - it - it's not something you seek out - it happens to you. Kinda. I'm not sure."

She didn't really know what to make of that. "That's more...confusing than enlightening." It was enough to get a chuckle out of both of them and lighten the mood.

"Yeah, I guess." She took a moment to think. "Hey, what if there was a way for you to partake in it after all?"

The weight on her that being excluded put on her grew lighter upon hearing that. "There is?"

A grin began to form itself along those big jaws. "It's like a scavenger hunt, right?" The soon terrified doe froze when she saw her classmate reach forward and grab her shoulder. "Hey. You got tarot cards, right?" She meekly shook her head. "They can tell the future or something like that, right?" Noelle tried to say 'maybe', but it only came out as a squeak.

"How about we see if we can cheat our way to some answers?" Noelle didn't like how she was looking at her with those big teeth on display, but the look on her face showed that Susie really liked the thought of what she was proposing. How on earth could she say no? So she just stayed frozen, shaken only by the narrow motions of herself shaking her head until she was let go.

Once she was though, she quickly got to work. She opened up her bag, pulled out the little box with a tall pile of cards. They weren't as smooth as the industrially produced ones you could buy in stores. That was because they were thin, white slabs of cardboard, printed-on on both sides and then cut out with neatly rounded corners like regular playing cards. And then wrapped in plastic tape to make their surface smooth. Flipping through them and shuffling them raised some eyebrows on Susie's part. "That's a lot of cards. Did you really make those yourself?"

Noelle smiled with pride. "Yes. Every single one. The minor ones are mostly based off of other tarot designs. The major ones - they're more personal."

"But why? Why would you make all this?"

It brought back memories. Not bad memories, just saddening memories. "They were for - I wanted to show them to someone else. I was waiting for a sign for when it was time but...I waited and waited and waited, and it never happened. I was hoping eventually - the time just never came. Please, let's leave it at that." She tried to clear her mind of it and smile as if Susie had never asked. "I just misread some signs, that's all. Don't worry about it."

She focused on shuffling to get those memories out of her mind. "So what is it you had in mind? I was going to just show you some normal four-row or four-card spreads, but if you want to use them for this 'dark world' thing, I have to know what you want to ask while I'm shuffling."

"That's easy. Let's start with the obvious one. So there's this thing, let's call them 'portals'. Berdly thinks they're random. I don't think so. There's got to be some logic to it. Ask the cards what the logic is. What does it depend on where portals show up? What do I need to do to get to the dark world again?"

"All right. Let's see what we can do." Once they were both more focused on the task ahead, the mood between them relaxed a little bit again. After showing Susie how to shuffle them in a way that flipped some of the cards over, she had Susie shuffle them as well. "So. Let's see what the cards say. What is the logic behind those portals? We'll go with three cards."

She drew drew one card and placed it on the table. "This is the first - eek!" For a moment, Noelle contemplated pulling the card back and calling this whole thing off. But the dragon was staring at her with this one eye, expecting her to follow through. She couldn't go back now, so she just went on to place it down. The first card depicted a man sitting on a throne. A young boss monster from the looks of it, save for his fur and horns being pitch black instead of snow white.

The grinning goat was almost completely naked. A plain loincloth being wrapped around his hips was the only thing that made this image slightly less awkward to draw or behold. The white bow tie really only highlighted his bare fur even further. The throne he sat on had strange, swung shapes to it, and the way the cushion behind his head just 'hung' down its lean as two wide 'strands' seemed all the more bizarre at first.

Upon looking more closely, wasn't an actual throne as such, but just a group of naked human women posing closely together to form the semblance of a throne for him to sit on. With the backs of two of them forming the throne's back and the hair that hung off the backs of their heads, making up the cushion for the horned figure to lean on.

His right hand was wide open. On its upward palm, he was holding the loose ends of two metal chains that led to collars wrapped around the necks of a human man and woman who - stripped bare like everyone else - stood in the left and right corner of the picture. "The Devil."

Noelle was blushing so much, Susie could have seen it through the fur, if she wasn't preoccupied with staring at the picture and scratching one lower corner of her head. "Hm. I think I've seen his face somewhere - wait, Kris sai-" She connected it. If Doctor Luxon was the 'Devil' Noelle threw away, then this was the final 'Devil' she settled with for the cards she was showing her now. "Is that Asriel? Did you make a card of Kris' brother?"

Noelle gnawed on the tips of her fingers. She struggled to come up with an answer. "I - uhm - a lot of boss monsters look similar. I suppose he's bound to look a bit like him."

Her classmate was pretty damn certain this meant that that was Asriel though. "Right." She leaned back and folded up her arms. "So what's it about?"

"The Devil means you're limiting yourself. The ends of the chains are loose because you could walk away from what's holding you back any time if you wanted to. He means that you're getting distracted or otherwise indulging yourself in bad ways, and that it's going to have a bad outcome in the long run."

"Okay, weird. But I'll take it. So what's next?"

Noelle drew the next card and placed it on the table. In its background, a giant human stood on all fours on a cloud and reached to the front with a large five-pointed star in his hand. "The ace of pentacles." The pentagram emitted a golden aura and in its light, flowers and other plants were growing far above the surfaces they were sprouting from.

"It stands for new beginnings. If you feel like you failed to get what you want in the past, you might have a chance to start over. Turn over a new leaf. Or it means that an opportunity will appear. An opportunity to get something you want, and if it does, you have to reach for it. But you have to make actual efforts to pursue it if you do."

Susie kept leaning against the back of her chair, but she felt herself grow a little tense. She felt...something. She felt like this card stood for exactly what she wanted. But she felt anxious, too. What if this opportunity showed up and she didn't recognize it? What if she brushed it off as something else, and simply missed it? She didn't want to think about it for much longer. "Right. Sounds nice. What next?"

"Lastly would be..." Noelle pulled the last card off the pile and placed it on the table next to the other two.

The background of the picture was a bedroom with dark, ebonwood walls and a heavily decorated bed frame with a big mattress on it. In front of it stood a familiar figure. A short human with a green striped shirt, brown hair and yellow skin. His hair was so long and hung over the front of his face so much, that you couldn't see his eyes in the shadow they cast.

"Uhm." With a smirk on her face, Susie looked up and down between the card and its apparent designer. "I'm pretty sure that's Kris." The Kris on the picture had the index finger of each of his hands hooked into his mouth and was pulling it open to both sides with them while stretching his tongue out at the viewer.

At the bottom of the picture, embedded in a spot left open by the frame that adorned the outer edges, were two zeroes and the card's name. "The Fool." She tried to suppress it, but Susie couldn't help but chuckle at this for a while. "Why is Kris 'The Fool'? Now that's just mean."

"I didn't expect you to care."

She was a bit flustered upon hearing that. "What - I mean - I don't. Still, that's kinda mean."

"I'm sorry. I'm sure he'd understand." Noelle took her hand off her mouth and adjusted the card a bit to be more neatly in a row with the others. "The Fool stands for optimism, youth, wanting to embark on an adventure. For new beginnings, or taking on some new big task."

"Adventure. Now we're talking."

"Yes, except he also means that in such a new adventure, you need to be careful. There are dangers lurking. At least they're all pointing upwards, that's a good sign."

The dragon looked over the three cards and folded up her arms. "So what's that all mean? I get that there's a theme about starting adventures going on here, but I don't see anything about how."

"I'm not sure either."

They were quiet for a while, until Susie's doubts broke the silence. "You sure that 'Fool' card isn't just supposed to mean Kris?" Noelle looked up to follow the purple claw's movement as it pointed over at not-Asriel. "So this guy..." Her hand shifted over to point to the ace. "...is going to make something unexpected happen..." And then the Fool. "...around Kris?"

Noelle just shook her head and smiled. "No, I'm sorry. That's not how it works. The cards always stand for abstract concepts, not actual people. If I had to interpret it in one sentence, I would say that..." She began following the cards with her finger in the same order. "...if you indulge yourself, an unexpected opportunity will present itself. A chance at a new adventure."

"Right, if you say so." She didn't seem too convinced. "So what's going to happen? If I follow the trail to the dark world. Or if we do. Ask the cards what their opinion of the future is."

Noelle nodded. She already was in the process of reshuffling the cards and soon handed them back and forth so that both did the shuffling at some point. Then she began drawing cards. The first one showed them an archaic military camp, with tents set up in the background. In the foreground, a grinning human with short hair was sneaking away with several swords, away from a weapon rack with more swords that was clearly missing the ones he was carrying. "It's the Seven of Swords."

"And what does it stand for?"

"Deception. Or trying to sneak away from an uncomfortable situation, but it has mostly to do with lying and tricking people. Or maybe theft? Someone is lying to you about something and they aren't doing it with the best of intentions. Or they will lie to you in the future."

Susie shrugged it off. She didn't really believe in any of this holding true anyway. It was just a bunch of randomly drawn cards after all. Besides. "Could be worse. I feel like that's already the case all the time."

They both began to laugh. "That's actually - you know I'm honest with you right? You can trust me."

Susie didn't like Noelle's attempts at getting through to her. Either that, or she wasn't buying it. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's move on. What's the next one?"

The next one showed them a robed young human man with a blue spiked helmet with a smug expression on his face, gesturing to his curved table with open hands. On it, in front of a purple curtain, stood ten golden goblets, each one shiny enough to sparkle. "The Ten of Cups! It stands for happiness and fulfillment. It would mean you're getting everything you want and have a happy family life. Except..."

Unlike all the previous cards, this one was pointing with its bottom to Susie. "It's reversed. That means so is the happiness. Now it just means broken bonds, broken families, trouble at home...I mean, it can't mean me. Do you...do you have trouble? At home I mean?"

"What? Nah! You got the wrong one. That or the cards are just wonky." They were both laughing. It was awkward on both sides. And even after that, they were both visibly and audibly nervous.

Noelle figured it was best to just move on like before. She drew that third card. "Oh dear." It depicted the rainy centre of a big city, with roads and skyscrapers to both sides. In the middle stood a building that outdid all its surrounding buildings in height. A golden plaque in the shape of a capital 'T' adorned the top of the building, which was being struck with a lightning.

Below the plaque, neon lights formed a simple cartoon image of a smiling human, an extra hand pointing to the face with its thumb. "The Tower. Upright, too. Don't worry. It's often not as bad as people think, it -"

"So what does it mean?"

She avoided eye-contact with the dragon at this point. "Disaster. Something big is going to happen. Something that changes a lot. And not for the better. Oh no, please not - I mean."

The dragon was losing her temper enough to raise her hand, but then managed to hold her open palm Noelle's way. "Stop, okay, stop. It's just a bunch of cards. All in good fun. No need to take this seriously. But we could just follow up on that. Why? Why's the disaster happening? See what they say about that."

The doe needed encouragement to shuffle the cards. Susie didn't expect Noelle to be someone that actually believed in all this stuff. Then again, she should have known better. If playing cards and cards like these were people in another world that you could talk to, them communicating with you through what order they're pulled off a pile in wasn't that far-fetched either.

But even if that was what was going on, how were even the dark world versions of those cards supposed to know the future? That made no sense. She was getting swept up in Noelle's reactions and overthinking it. They were random cards, nothing else. "All right. Let's see. Why is the disaster happening?"

The first card just featured two humans standing on a road with a green field in the background. They were dressed in gambesons and were facing each other with not too friendly expressions. They were crossing swords - possibly in battle.

"Two of Swords. It stands for balancing out, making a tough decision - it usually revolves around some sort of conflict. Two forces are in conflict with each other. They can be two priorities in your mind, or two people, or your choice between two people, or two groups of people - either way, neither path involves the other path being followed through."

"Okay? What forces?"

The second card featured a human woman on the stone foundation of a building, but with no building on it. Her throne was in the middle of a rocky landscape. The surrounding area was barren, covered in stone. There were mountain ranges peeking up from the piles of gold glowing as brightly as the woman's crown that littered the ground around her.

Several of those coins were faced towards the viewer with the five-pointed stars engraved on them visible on all of them. "The Queen of Pentacles. She stands for financial security, stability, having wealth in abundance, fertility or potential to make a lot of wealth - generally - it means you have a lot of money right now."

"That'll be a no. Doesn't sound - "

They were interrupted when the door opened again. This time, the unsure face looking in through her slightly foggy glasses, was that of their teacher. "Ah. Hi. Sorry - I uh - I forgot something here. Won't take long." It was just Alphys. No-one Susie had to worry about seeing her doing weird stuff with cards. Once she saw that she could, the lizard rushed inside and behind her desk to open one of the drawers in the back and look for something inside it.

Without a word, her two students agreed to proceed. "All right." Lastly, the picture that followed was that of another woman on a throne with no throne room to surround it. She had blonde hair, was wearing distinct, dark red lipstick and had a stern look on her face. There were more big wooden rods with leaves planted into the ground around her, in an upright vertical position towards the viewer.

"The Queen of Wands. She stands for great fertility or potential. But this particular card actually does mean to pay attention to a woman in our lives. One with bright hair if she's a human. But a lot of monsters don't have manes like us, so the bright hair could also refer to the colour of her fur."

She had a bright coat, too. She was about to emphasize that maybe, Susie should pay more attention to any female monsters with brighter colours in general. But the giggling teacher spoke up from behind her desk. "Hehe - or her scales. Paying more attention in class always helps." The dragon shot her teacher a disapproving look, but she was too fast in ducking back down to search for whatever she was looking for to notice.

It was probably best to switch subjects before Alphys got any wrong ideas. "What's with those weird wands anyway? Aren't wands supposed to be all..." Susie went on to make gestures resembling a conductor waving around his baton.

This tickled out a much more sincere chuckle from her classmate. "Those are different wands. These are fertility symbols. Wands are always all about potential and possibilities. They're staves that stand for fire or fertility, that you stick into the ground. They're not as much magic wands as something like Asherah poles. Desert mice used to put those up to worship a deity."

"'Asherah' I'm guessing?"

"Yes. She's the goddess of fertility, motherhood, air and earth, grooming, child molestation..."

"Wait, what?"

Noelle stared at the table in shame and mumbled: "There's a reason they don't teach the occult in schools. It's usually obscure and hidden behind several layers, but Asherah actually inspired a lot of fictional characters, even all the way to today."

Alphys, who seemed to have found what she was looking for and was already on her way out, stopped and giggled upon hearing this. "Yeah. Like Vashaara."

Noelle and Susie turned and bent sideways to face her. "Who?" It seemed both of them didn't know that name.

Alphys stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Vashaara?" She stared back at her students, apparently expecting them to know this name. "Come on, Vashaara? Queen of Sin? Nothing? She's fro-" She stopped mid-sentence, so as to expect them to know what she was talking about.

After waiting for a little longer to see if anything occurred to Susie and Noelle, she sighed. "I guess it's from before your time. Forget I said anything. See you tomorrow. I hope." Without another word, she left the classroom. Whatever 'thing' Vashaara was from, it obviously wasn't important enough to be worth the time or the embarrassment to explain it to them.

"Well regardless of what that was about, there are a lot of other characters that take inspiration from her. I can immediately think of one from a video game. But there's a lot more than that one. Even if only for entertainment, people still reference her."

Susie kept staring back at the door to make sure their teacher wasn't coming back. And once she was, she relaxed. "I totally forgot this isn't the empty classroom. Mind if we take this there, before anyone else shows up here?"

"Are you sure? Wouldn't you want to know more?"

"It's all just random cards, anyway. None of this is an actual answer to anything, right?" Susie's mind was made up. Enough for her to get up and get ready to move. "Besides, if you're up for it, we can keep this going in the empty classroom."

Noelle understood that there was no keeping her here. "All right. Though I was at first hoping we could do a normal tarot reading. Like what your fortune says about career, love, social life..."

"Yeah, how about no? It already got way too weird." Well, those were clear words. Words that shut down the conversation while they both got packed up and left for the hallway. "But if you're up for it, we could play some more card games." With a renewed smile, Noelle nodded.

She never got through to saying the line, like her father told her to, but their time was enjoyable nonetheless. Playing simple card games was a lot more relaxing and lighthearted than the tarot session. And time went by much more quickly while doing so.

Eventually though, an alarm on Noelle's phone went off. A reminder of the time. Susie may not have had anywhere to be, but Noelle did. When she packed up her cards and got ready to leave, she was in so much of a rush, she felt she had to apologize to Susie for up and leaving so quickly. And still felt bad about it all the way until she was outside.

The afternoon was already blending into the evening when she left the school. She didn't have that much time left to visit her father before it was time to see where she'd spend the night.

Why did this feeling of anxiousness soften up her spine? Dad was still going to be there when she arrived. There was no need for the unease she began to feel. And yet she felt it, the further she tread away from the safety around Susie and into the cold outside. The rows of houses she passed, felt apathetic to her, even though she knew they were buildings and didn't 'feel' or 'think' at all.

The growing shadow the hospital walls cast, only made them all the more imposing. And inside, nothing had changed. The nurse was sitting there again, the piano was gathering dust with each day and no-one present was surprised at Noelle's visit. Which was relieving. Everything was as it was yesterday. More confidently than yesterday, she opened the door. "Who's - hey! There ya are."

The moment he saw her hand, Dad greeted her. "Come in - " He had to cough mid-sentence. With a slight gurgle in his cough that Noelle could have sworn wasn't there yesterday.

When Noelle opened the door far enough to look inside, her heart felt like it shrank just a little. And with her back turned on her, Sarah was standing at the sink and washing a used glass. Just like yesterday, the overgrown mouse monster was wearing a suit that spoke of deadly formality, not something you wore when visiting a friend.

Without even saying 'Hi' to the startled doe, she rushed past her with the glasses and wine bottle she must have brought with her. "Sa - Hello?" But she was already gone. She didn't so much as look at her.

"Don't mind her. Busy woman, like your mother. It's like she said, we should be thankful she even came to visit at all." Her father, with his head nestled into the cushion on the raised end of the bed, made no efforts to raise it. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he seemed weaker than before.

He had to cough again. "Even brings me some wine every time. Doctors say a little wine's fine. Come here." With this encouragement, she stepped all the way to the side of his bed and held her father's hand. "So how was your day?" He was looking her right in the eyes and Noelle didn't know where to start. "Did you say the thing?"

She was flustered enough to forget about any worries and covered her blushing face. "I don't think I ever could. But I spent another afternoon with her. Played card games and read her fortune."

He lowered his eyelids to only cover half his eyes. "Did you read the cards on where her love life will take her?"

He was always so direct. Noelle had to laugh for a bit before she could answer. "No. She and a few - friends have some new club or - activity. I'm not sure how to describe it."

The inner ends of her father's eyebrows trailed down closer to his eyes. "That nerd guy better not be in the mix here."

She chuckled. "Yes. Yes he is. But it's okay. Today it was just me and Susie. There'll be other days like that."

Her father raised his hand to run it through her hair, closed his eyes. "I'm sure there will be."

She stared at him for a while, before she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek and left quietly. She was confident that he was well on his way to recovery. Until she was already halfway out of the hospital and heard him cough louder and for longer than it even took to hear him from out here. And that gurgle was still there.

It was just the treatment or his recovery. His immune system giving him a hard time, so he'd be better later. He was getting better, he had to be.

She prayed that he was. To whoever was still willing to hear her.


	15. Little Girl Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noelle doesn't want to borrow the key to her own home, not again. She looks to Kris for a place to stay instead. But that comes with it's own troubles.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 03

Little Girl Blue

* * *

She couldn't do it. School was over, she had showed Susie her tarot cards and she had visited her father for the day. But Noelle didn't want to risk going through the same thing she did yesterday. She couldn't ask her mother for the key to her home. It was too much yesterday, it was too much today. And she couldn't keep relying on Catti day in day out either. Which was why she planned ahead this time.

She had taken the time to make for at least a chance at not having to. With his disappearance for an entire day's worth of school classes, followed by the strangely excessive group project, she was sure that Kris was more in need of help with school work than ever. Or at least, she could argue as much with him and Toriel. She had prepared problems to walk him through based on the material in yesterday's worksheets.

And because she knew his mother was a bit squeamish with visitors or letting people spend time with Kris in general, she made sure to ask her for permission to come for a visit, several hours in advance, while still at school with Susie. And as she walked up that last road towards the woods, she didn't just see that house come closer, she could feel it.

Here was to hoping it would work. When she stood in front of the door, she couldn't bear raising her head far enough to even see its upper end. And she hesitated ringing the bell for quite some time, until she managed to push herself enough to do so.

It appeared Toriel was only a few steps away, from how quickly she answered the door. "Oh, hello." She was speaking with a lowered voice and slowly moved aside. "Why don't you come in?"

She nodded and thanked her. "Uhm..." She sat down at the edge of the couch. "I wanted to - wait. Kris is at home, is he?"

Seated back in her comfy chair, the smiling woman nodded. "Although I would rather if you stayed down here for a while." She was still speaking with a lowered voice, and gave Noelle disapproving looks when she didn't. When Noelle asked why, Kris' mother put her book aside and got up. She trod through the living room as softly as a big creature like herself could, with paws like her own and gestured Noelle to do the same.

They snuck up the stairs, Toriel opened the door to her son's and Asriel's room very slowly. He was lying in his bed, fully dressed, with his arm wound around the cushion. Sleeping. Even the doorbell didn't wake him up. Once Toriel's suspicion was confirmed, she closed the door again and led Noelle back downstairs.

Once they were back on the soft seats around the unused television, Noelle began talking again, now keeping her voice down the way Toriel did. "I - uhm - I wanted to know if...because of my father's situation, things are a bit complicated. I'd like to know if - if..."

"Please, no need to worry. Whatever request you might have, I'm sure it won't be too much."

"I wanted to know if when me and Kris are finished studying - whether I could stay over for tonight." Toriel stared at her in silence. She could feel the pressure from here. She opened her bag and began searching through it. "I - I uh...I have everything I need here."

She pulled out an old, small bag with a zipper, filled with unused toothbrushes, tooth paste and other bathroom utensils she needed if she stayed overnight with someone else, usually Catti. "I promise I won't be a burden, I mean we've all known each other for long enough and I can cook for myself if that's..."

Toriel was gesturing her to stop and when she did, she spoke as softly to her as she did before. "There is no cause for concern. You're a sweet, diligent and orderly girl. Of course you can stay here if you like. As long as Asriel doesn't need his bed." Hearing this took a heavy burden off of Noelle's mind. She got up for a second and thanked her several times until she realized that she was perhaps showing more excitement than she should have.

While she was still standing, the older woman got up as well. "Just, please. He just visited another classmate. I was hoping to have a relaxing evening at home today. I would much prefer if the two of you stayed here. No trips outside or the like." This was all she wanted.

As long as she remained here, she had a place to stay. Toriel continued while she made her way to the kitchen. "If it were someone else, I would worry they might be too much of a distraction, but with you, it's quite the opposite. You're part of the family." Noelle followed her and when she began cutting vegetables, her weary guest offered to lend a hand.

Toriel trusted Noelle enough to agree, too. At least for a bit. While they did, she began to ask the relieved doe one thing after the other. What this assignment was that seemed to prompt Kris' spontaneous sleepover at Berdly's, she asked how Noelle's father was faring, how she was doing at school.

When she noticed Noelle getting uncomfortable upon being asked what those 'complications' were that had given rise to this visit of hers, she luckily didn't see reason to further inquire. Most of the things Toriel brought up, she was prepared for. She expected them and came here with a basic idea what to tell her if asked each one. But eventually, the teacher surprised her. "And - before you head upstairs..."

She paused right after pouring oil on a pan and smiled at her. "Pardon my curiosity, dear. I admit when I see you, Kris and the others in the hallways, I tend to watch all of you a little more closely than I care to admit. You seem a little down as of late. Even before Rudolph's condition. Is there something on your mind?"

Yes. "No. No worries."

"Is there anything you would like to talk about?"

"No, really. There's nothing." Noelle appreciated it. Toriel didn't have to show concern like this. She closed her eyes and shook her head. There was. Well, there used to be. But that was in the past. Signals were misread, when she expected something to happen, when she hoped it would happen, nothing did.

More than enough time had passed for her to be sure it never would. It was a misunderstanding, a big misunderstanding. Nothing else. She was foolish to think it was more than that. Even so, it was in the past. Now Susie was all she could hope to fill that void with. Besides, there was no need to involve Toriel here. Considering her religiosity, that would have done more harm than good.

To her relief, this sufficed for an answer and she could make for sneaking up the stairs to check whether Kris was awake by now. He wasn't. Still fast asleep with his head facing the window. Did he and Berdly not sleep at all last night? Did they really go all out finishing this ludicrous assignment and then spend the rest of the night putting together this 'dark world' story they then told Susie as part of this game they were playing?

What were they thinking? How completely irresponsible. But that was Berdly as she knew him. Getting so carried away by something that caught his interest, he'd stay up all night if she wasn't there to stop him.

Careful not to touch him, she sat down on the side of the bed and placed her hand on his shoulder to give him a faint nudge. "Kris." It did nothing to wake him. Perhaps whispering and barely touching someone wasn't the most effective way to wake someone up. When she increased the pressure and slightly pulled back and forth on his side, she was startled when she realized she was eliciting a reaction.

He shifted and flipped around, ultimately facing the wall and mumbling to himself as he did. "No, Gobbler, no." Eventually, she pinched him with the solid tips of her fingers. She had to do it several times until she finally saw and heard the signs of him waking up for good. When he opened one of his eyes, he hesitated and shook his head. Truthfully, he was actually a lot less tired than he should have been considering he and Berdly had stayed up all night. With a lot of excitement to fill that, too.

A glimpse at Asriel's alarm clock revealed to him that he had slept for less than an hour until Noelle woke him up. "Kris, what were you thinking? Sleeping at a time like this. Does this have to do with that thing you two were talking about with Susie?"

The moment she said that, he twitched. Was she listening when that happened? He thought she had already left. Then again, she still was in the hallway when he followed Berdly outside. She seemed to register his shock, as she backed away and threw her hands off. "No need to worry. She explained it to me."

Wait, she did? No, she would have been more rattled. What exactly did Susie 'explain to her'? "I'm really surprised about you lately. Making friends and getting Berdly to join on making up silly make-believe stories, too?" She laughed. She was doing this thing again where she seemed to know him so well, she responded to what he was thinking without him saying anything. "Susie, too of all people? Just what happened to you?"

On one hand, her having him figured out so well always unsettled him, on the other hand, he enjoyed having someone understand him without him having to go out of his way to talk to them.

By now fully awake, he looked up and straight at her. "Well. Since you heard." He got up and balanced off the edge of his bed to not drag his shoes along the middle and reached up to his lower shelf.

Under a green crayon, up on its flat back tip, lay the drawing that apparently once was to become a card. Samuel, although Noelle probably didn't know him by that name. He placed the crayon aside but kept it standing so it wouldn't roll off and sat back down to show her. "What is - what is - I mean how did you find that?" A faint glow was shimmering through the fur on her cheeks as she realized what this was, and what he had done with him.

All right, now he had to think this through. "We found it in Berdly's room." She said Susie 'explained it to her', but if she had to ask where he found Samuel, she probably omitted the part where they traveled to another world where her art came to life. He just had to be careful not to say anything that conflicted with what Susie told her.

"Yes but - did you do this?" She took it in her own hands to give it a closer look. "How did you - how did you know it was him?" He looked at her with confusion. "How did you know it was Asriel?"

He had nothing elaborate. "A lucky guess?"

"Really? I mean I guess that makes sense. There aren't that many Boss Monsters around here after all." When he checked where she was looking, she was avoiding eye contact. She didn't believe him. Well, at least she would move on to something else.

"And the card - I mean thank you. I appreciate the effort. But I already made a new 'Devil' long ago. I don't need this one any more. But look at - if you made this, you drew other things, right?" He shifted away from her and looked off to the side. She responded with a calming gesture. "It's all right, you don't have to show them to me. I didn't come here for that anyway. I came for this."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a familiar, green and loose leaf binder. "I thought you and Berdly would take yesterday's assignment much less seriously. Well, at least that you wouldn't complete it. So if you need help with our homework, I'm here now. And I prepared some more stuff for after that."

Homework and extra work that wasn't even homework. This wasn't the recuperating afternoon and evening he was hoping for. And now that she was already here, he couldn't turn her away either. So without further complaint, he put Sam back on the shelf, took the lamp off his unusually wide nightstand and turned it sideways so that it could serve them as a table.

They didn't get too far. Not long after they started, Kris' mother opened the door to announce that dinner was ready. Noelle was merciful enough not to press him further on anything, including the dark world. And after a full-fledged meal, they went on with school work. Mom regularly popped by to offer to bring them something, sometimes just to take a peek.

And he didn't pay attention to that first, but he gradually noticed that she kept coming by and made sure that the door to his and Asriel's room was always open at any given time. The reason he picked up on this to begin with, was that her visits became more and more frequent as time went on.

The hours went by, and towards them finishing up with all the extra material she prepared for him, the pie for the three of them was done as well. Of course Mom made pie. She always did when they had someone visit. And a lot of the time when they didn't have anyone over as well.

"Again..." Noelle went on. "I can't say often enough how thankful I am for you to have me stay over." She had told him that she was sleeping In Asriel's bed while they were doing homework. It cleared up a lot of confusion on why she was still here at eleven o'clock, in the night.

"Of course. You're always welcome with us. Besides. Kris has been more sociable lately in general as well." She placed a hand on Kris' and smiled at him. "I'd love to know what I have to thank for this."

"For one, I think we discovered we share a hobby I didn't know of." Oh no. "Oh, come on. Don't be like that." What was she doing? "Come on now, there's nothing wrong with wanting a little praise. You know what?" She didn't seem to pay attention to whether or not he agreed to this and got right up from the table. "No need to even get up. I'll fetch it." She was going to show Mom Sam. She was going up the stairs, leaving him helpless at the table.

The human swallowed. All right, it wasn't as if Mom knew anything about the dark world. All Kris had to do, was stick to his story. Noelle said something about make-believe stories. If he just went along with everything relating to the dark world being a story that he and Berdly made up, he was going to raise some eyebrows, but it was still more believable than the truth. He accepted that he was possibly to retell the story and waited for her.

He listened intently to accompany her along every step in his mind. He heard every step up the stairs and with a lingering sense of discomfort. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have. He heard her grab the door handle and turn it. "Uhm..." Then she stopped. He wasn't sure why. Something changed, but he wasn't sure what that was.

He looked towards the stairs. Something was different. Wasn't the light on a second ago? Wait, it sort of was, but it was somehow replaced with a pale, very faint light. "What happened - is it..." He had an inkling. No. It couldn't be. It wasn't that a pale light replaced the yellowish glow of the upstairs lamp at the ceiling. It was that the hallway upstairs was getting darker and he could see it from down here.

Without a word, he got up. He was sure he was wrong. He was most likely wrong. "...wait, it's not...he-" He ran up the stairs, ignoring his mother's protest, and doing so only confirmed his suspicion to his horror. Behind the open door he was running towards, was nothing but a black void. And the entire hallway was darker, the same way it was when he and Susie opened the supply closet door, or when Berdly opened his closet to look for Pluma's Scott doll.

When he reached the doorframe, he grabbed it by both sides and stretched his head through it. In the dark, right below him, he could see something fall. Her. It must have been her. The door to his room opened as a portal to the dark world and Noelle fell right through just like Berdly. And to make it worse, below, it wasn't just blackness. He recognized the waves by their silhouettes. She was falling into a sea.

He had no room for hesitation. He didn't take time to be careful or slowly inch his way into jumping after her. This was Noelle that was falling down there, not Berdly. He stretched his hands through the door ready for a dive and jumped right through head first. Again, the instant shock from feeling through the rippling air currents, how fast he was falling, filled him with tread and immediate regret over his reckless decision.

He could tell from where her screams came from, that he sped past her. And then came the impact. Hitting the water hurt his hands so much, he couldn't feel them any more, and the pressure of the water crushed him from all sides as he dove in. The rushing water pressed against his ears and made hearing anything impossible.

He couldn't breathe, and the cold water only made the pain even worse. But he was conscious, and holding his breath paid off. With a few strokes upon turning himself around, he was able to swim back to the surface and immediately struggled for air when he did it. The uneven water almost crashed right in his face.

Noelle crashed into the water, before he had time to look up to where she was. He took a deep breath and dove right back into the water. Even in the pitch black void down there, he could see the red and blue glow coming from her direction and knew where to swim. She was struggling in panic, but she wasn't swimming anywhere. He had to go back to the surface to catch some air on his way, she was too far away not to.

After reaching her, he swam up to her and approached her from below with his arm open to get hold of her in this voluminous red robe she was wearing all of a sudden, and push her to the surface. She was gladly thin enough for that to work. Even when he had pushed her back up here, they were far from out of danger. But he was still glad when he could gasp for air and heard the hysterical doe do the same.

She was out of it. Struggling randomly in his arm. It was like Rudy had said. She was scared out of her mind. And unless he found either land or something to hold onto soon, she had every reason to be. It was so cold. They wouldn't last for too long, at least he didn't feel they would.

Whenever she wasn't incoherently screaming or struggling for air, all she said were random repetitions of 'help', his name and something like 'what'. Hard to tell most of the time, since she never held onto a thought for long enough to utter a word without stuttering and interrupting herself.

The desperate human did what he could to find something to escape to. The closest he saw, was a tall, red metal structure, built above the water and mounted on more metal supports that went into the water, possibly all the way to the bottom of the sea. This was his only hope. If they could get to that, there was a chance that they would make it. All he had to do, was force his way through this.

The trip was long, and physically exhausting to him all around. Every part of his body was in pain. He didn't even bother to ponder too much how he could swim in his armor, he was just thankful that he could. The further he made it, the more Noelle's struggles subsided.

The interrupted single-syllable words she tried uttering before, made way for her starting to ask him something, and stopping mid-sentence each time, either because they had to dedicate everything to catching their breath, or because those smaller waves that crashed onto and through their faces, turned their swimming into short dives through the water.

This trip was endless. At times, it felt like they weren't getting closer at all. Sometimes, he was convinced of it. He just had to keep going. It was the only way. And eventually, they got close enough that he could spot a ladder that ranged from into the water, up to where they could climb up the red wall. Not long later, they actually made it to the ladder at last.

Noelle had long defaulted to trying to ask Kris what all this was, but never actually finishing the sentence. He was so happy to at long last reach for and grab one of the bars and hold onto it. When he pulled Noelle closer and pressed her against the ladder, she understood, hesitated, but eventually began climbing up.

When he had guided her far up enough for there to be space for him to follow her up, he was so glad he could get out of the freezing water. The more of it ran off of his body, the more the cold left with it. It was still there, but it was moving towards becoming bearable. At last, it was time to take a moment to look around.

Even from here, past the supports, there was land in the distance. He could already guess that their way out of here was probably not on this place, they were going to head over there sooner or later. For now, it was best to climb up.

At the top, the ladder led right into another ladder that led down for a bit. Onto a single, platform surrounded by walls as red as the platform itself. As much of the area as was possible, was encompassed by a dome made of broad iron bars.

The top was covered in leaves and debris here and there to make for a ceiling, especially towards one corner. In which there was a makeshift house, built of loosely attached wooden planks and a straw ceiling. The planks were all arranged unevenly, nothing seemed to quite fit, in some places, the measurements were so mismatched, they outright left holes in the corners between the outside walls and the planks making up the flimsy attempt at a ceiling that it had.

Whoever built this, was either in a hurry, had little care for stability or things fitting optically, or both. It was surrounded by heaps of all kinds of things, such as bows, garden tools, rotten fruits, furs, everything.

"Kris...Kris..." He was already thinking of going to that house when his trembling friend grabbed onto the shoulder covered in his cape. "Kris what's going on?" Noelle wasn't in panic anymore, but still visibly scared and confused. Her cheeks were burning enough for it to shine through and she was near tears. "Please!"

"We're in the dark world."

That only unsettled her even more. "But - but it was a story. You and Berdly made it up!" Well at least now that the cat was out of the bag and Noelle was seeing this bizarre place with her own eyes, he knew what Susie ran with to explain their conversation away.

"This can't..." It must have been obvious even to her, that they were no-where near home anymore. Everything looked fundamentally different. They could see this platform, and the silhouettes of the waves in the ocean down below, but like the last two times, they couldn't really make out a source of light that explained all this being visible. Even here, the only sources of light were the torches along all the walls of that house on the other side of the dome.

And he and Noelle stood in bright contrast to this darkness. Noelle was wearing a bright red coat, with patches of white fur aligned along all the edges of her. Her fur was deep blue, her hair dark green, and her antlers had the same shade of red here, that her robe did. "No...no..." She began to cover her face and look down. "This isn't real, this is some dream! A strange dream! I shouldn't have had pie just before going to bed!"

He wasn't really sure what to do, so he just stood next to her. Then he remembered what worked with Berdly. But this wasn't Berdly, so he had to try not to startle her too much. He reached out to grab her shoulder with one hand, and tighten his grip to get her attention. "Noelle! Noelle, listen." Perhaps running with her idea of what this was, was a good way to ease her into it.

After she calmed down a bit, he looked at her right in the eyes. "Yes, this is a dream. Maybe. Maybe nothing here is real. Maybe I'm not real either. Everything will be all right. By the end of this, you're going to wake up in Asriel's bed and it will be like none of this happened, okay?" He got through to Noelle enough for her to get a hold of herself.

She nodded, but at this point her red nose was already running. Out of a pocket in her coat, lined with white fur like so many other parts, she pulled a handkerchief and wiped her nose with it. Now that she had calmed down, he pointed towards the house. "I want to know if there's someone over there." For how shoddily it was built, that house was pretty big. It only had one story, but it reached pretty far and it was too tall for Kris to make out where it ended towards the back.

He was about to walk over there, but noticed that Noelle was still a bit too hesitant, so he grabbed her by the wrist - which proved a bit more difficult due to the soggy sleeve of her robe and the still drenched winter glove she was wearing on her hand. He stopped to pull off the glove, take it in both hands, and twist and squeeze it to dry it as much as that immediately did and repeated this with her other glove.

Even so, she was still trembling. So was he, if he was honest. Leaving the water was an improvement, but he was still freezing. Now he just wanted to reach the warmth of those torches all the more.

As they came closer, someone actually came their way through the empty doorframe at the front. It was a grown man - an elderly human with a long grey beard and long, unkempt hair with leaves and dirt caught in it here and there. He was wearing several layers of tattered rags, each one loosely dangling and looking out of the one covering it.

The old man was supporting himself on a wooden stick the length of a staff. With his other hand, he was lighting his way using a torch, which he held by the handle at its top. It was neither electric, nor a torch using fire. Inside its casing, there was just a six-pointed star, the yellow light of which was a lot brighter than the torches that lined his wooden house.

"More strangers? Out here? Look at you two!" He had a creaky voice, but it didn't sound hostile. "All drenched, you've got to be freezing." He let go of his staff for a second and let it lean against his arm. He pointed his quivering hand towards the star. A short flash of lightning came from the tip of his finger and hit the star, after which it glowed a lot more brightly, bright enough that they could feel its warmth.

"Come on closer, you two. Poor girl looks terrified. How did you get here? Nevermind, come on in! I'm sure I've got some stuff to warm you up lying around somewhere." He took a step to the side but made sure he always shone on them with his torch. Kris wanted to follow, but Noelle wasn't following. The old man grinned. Kris could see that he was lacking a few teeth. "'less you two want to swim to the main land, you're either coming or you can stay out here forever. Your choice."

Noelle didn't seem to want to follow. She was freezing, but moreso, she was frozen in place out of fear. "Are you - are you sure about this?" A little further to the side, was a light. The lights no-one else could see. Kris figured one thing. He learned out of yesterday.

It was probably for the best if he didn't touch more lights than he had to. At least until he knew more about this place. That way, if he made some big, irreversible mistake, he could go back. He led her to the light, and touched it. "What are you doing?"

He was as unsure as she was, but he tried putting on a smile. If he wanted her to muster the courage to follow him anywhere, he had to project confidence. "Just thinking. And yes, I'm sure. Let's go." It was working. She was following his lead. Now he just had to figure out where exactly they were. If this realm worked anything like the last two, there would be a dark fountain, and sealing it would send them back home.

It wasn't as if he wasn't careful. But this man at least behaved friendly enough. Guided by the man's torch, they followed him. The lit torches didn't just end at the front door, they even lined the narrow hallways inside the old man's wooden house.

In a room at the end of the front hallway, the planks that made up the house, in smaller form, were arranged in a vague imitation to a modern living room, complete with a box made of planks as a placeholder for a television. He even had a fireplace. Two actually. One in front of the 'television', which he pushed aside, and one behind the wooden couches.

If Berdly was here, there was no way he would have missed the opportunity to comment on how this solitary person was keeping all these fires in a house made of wood. But it somehow hadn't burned down yet, so Kris figured it was best to humour the man's antics for the time being. He was a hoarder. There were piles and piles of random objects everywhere in here, just like outside.

The piles were in the fake living room, in the hallway, they filled the rooms behind the open doors to their sides, they were everywhere.

And Their hectic host walked off to a corner opposite from the fireplace, to one such pile in particular and threw everything on it to the side until it revealed to be covering a drying rack for clothes. Which he put up in front of the other fireplace. "Just hang it all there and warm yourselves up at the fire. I've got something to do, I'll be right back." Without further ado, the stranger went further into his wide house and left the two of them alone.

Noelle had followed suit. She took off her robe and with Kris' help, twisted it to squeeze as much of the water was was reasonable with the force they could apply out of it. Then she, hung up the heavy red-white coat and sat down in front of the fire. Under it, she was wearing a shirt and a pair of trousers with suspenders.

Kris was a little uncomfortable taking his armor plates off. He was wearing all black under them. Shirt, socks and trousers. All of it as smooth as silk, but elastic and so tight, it all stretched straight along him like a second skin. And it remained that way even when it was drying off. Nonetheless, it was Noelle, so that was okay.

He was okay with sitting next to her in front of the fire in spite of that. "Kris..." Noelle needed some time before she had her thoughts collected enough to speak up, but it was unavoidable to do so at some point. "Will we be okay?"

Maybe. "Yes."

Why was he even trying? He could tell from her expression that she didn't believe him. "I suppose...if this is the dark world, then - is that why you look like this?" How was he supposed to answer that? He couldn't. He just shrugged. She looked over to the rack with her robe and his armor plates lying at the side. "Why do we wear these clothes?"

Again, he had no idea. No-one bothered to really think about that. He wasn't sure if there even was an answer. "And if - is it like in your and Berdly's story? You said the dark people there were his old toys."

"Everything in the dark world is actually something in the real world. They were playing cards with Susie. With Berdly, they were toys. But I don't remember seeing him anywhere." He nodded to the exit the old man had taken. "Or anyone like him. Do you?"

She curled together with her knees raised, wound her arms around her legs and hid her face behind them. "I think. Maybe. He looks like he lives alone out here. And if he does, that makes him a hermit. I mean it fits, but..."

Before she could go on much further, the old man was already coming back. And he wasn't alone. Kris got up immediately the moment he registered that, but he and Noelle were both startled when they saw who was accompanying them. After a few more steps, a dragon with a rounded snout and in a darker tone of pink loomed over the two of them with a wide grin that bore her teeth. She was tall enough to look down on Kris in a menacing way. It was Susie, fully dressed in her dark world attire, complete with spiked armbands and everything, with the colours to her scales and hair to match it and her devilsknife in her right hand. "Susie?" He had to take a step back at first. "Wait, Susie, is that you?" Why was she here?

"Yep!" She swung her weapon over her shoulder to carry it that way and swung her head a bit to shake the dark red hair aside so she could fixate on him with those menacing yellow eyes. "In the flesh! I made it to the dark world!"

Kris took a small step back, and only noticed in hindsight that he did. He was dumbstruck. "Susie?" He just couldn't believe she was here. They could both tell how excited the dragon was to be here. She was grinning at them, but something about her and the and about how unusually wide her grin was, gave him that impression.

More than anything, he was just confused. The card kingdom was the abandoned classroom, very close to the closet he and Susie had fallen through to land in the cliffs they were in before. The closet in Berdly's room led to a set of cliffs adjacent to a larger area that corresponded with Berdly's room. So going by the door h and Noelle had fallen through, this should have been his and Asriel's room.

How did Susie get into his and Asriel's room? The thought of her getting here of all places so easily filled him with actual dread. In the end, worrying about it for himself wouldn't solve it though, so he went out of his way to ask her: "How did you get here?"

Their unannounced visitor scratched the side of her jawline. "I'm not even sure myself. I just know that I'm here now."

Their returning host came uncomfortably close to the frozen doe and stared her in the eye with the one eye he had that wasn't half-closed at all times. "So you three know each other?"

Susie pointed at her classmate. "That's Kris, remember? They're lightners, like me." The fast, cutting way she nodded at him almost made him inch further back, but when he realized that he did, he pulled himself together and took on a more straight and solid stance. "So Kris! Are Ralsei and Berdly around here, too?"

"We just got here. I don't even know if Ralsei will be here at all. How long have you been here anyway?"

The old man, who was throwing around some of the junk in his room, chimed in here. "That nosey drake's been popping in and out of here ever since I got here myself." Once he found the paddle he was apparently looking for, he handed it to Kris. "Here. You're going to need this if you want to go faster."

He stared at the paddle for a second and then raised his head to give Susie a questioning look. "Yeah, that'll help. Hey! Kris! I got us a ride to the main land, too. Come on, let's go." With a slow wave towards the back exit of the house, she turned around to go back to where she came from.

"Wait, what about our clothes?"

Susie stopped and came back upon registering it. "Oh, right. just follow when you're ready then. I'll be taking this." She came back to pull the paddle out of Kris' hand and left again. "Geezer knows where to send you."

Well at least they had a way off this platform now. He sat back down beside Noelle.

She was a sweating, trembling, bumbling mess, and even though the cold their bodies were running hot to counteract had worn off, she was blushing enough to see it through her fur right again. "I - uhm - Are you sure about this?" She leaned forward so she could look past him and glanced over at Susie. The dragon was so excited, she was swinging her short tail left and right. "Susie looks a bit more - different. She looks a bit different."

Kris shrugged. "You look different, too. And I do. And Berdly did. I've been in the dark world with her before. That's just what she looks like here."

"But - but we don't..." She paused for a moment, looking down on the floor. "I suppose." They both spent some time in silence, staring either at the fire or at the floor. Without looking up, his childhood friend continued. "So what happens next?"

"Now we'll need a prince from the dark world. I'm hoping we meet someone I know. He can help us. Then we need to get to a dark fountain and seal it together."

He checked her face to get an idea of whether she was listening or understanding, but he noticed something else instead. She was pinching her upper arm with the tips of her fingers. When he reached over to pull her hand off her arm, she only looked back at him. More worried than before. "This feels too real. This isn't really a dream, is it?"

They were both shaken up a bit when they hear something. Deep, mechanical droning, the sound of metal grinding against metal. Something in the facility the hermit had built his house on, was shifting. "Settle down, you two!", the old man said. "It's just the pier rolling out."

Kris pouted and stared back at the floor. It didn't matter. He could remember everything about how they got here. He was real of course, but from her point of view, if he wasn't, how would he know? It was probably best to just let her realize it on her own.

After waiting for a little while longer, he finally got up to check on their clothes. They weren't all dry just yet, but they were a lot more dry than before. Improving too much here would have taken a long time, so he slowly picked up his armor pieces and the straps by which they were usually attached to and put them back on.

He wasn't in a rush either. He took his time, and made sure each piece was sitting tight enough that it would stay in place even in a fight. Then he picked up Noelle's coat. It was really heavy due to how thick it was. With one of his gloves off, he felt various spots to see how dry it was, but as far as he could tell, it was good enough.

Back at the fireplace, he held it up, to hold as much of its inside against the warmth as he could. She had turned it inside out to dry out more of the water on the inside of the robe.

Eventually, Noelle got up as well and began to feel up the inside of the robe. "I think that's enough. Thank you." Finally, they flipped the robe back and she put it back on. She took the many red bands with white fluffy orbs at their ends that were arranged at various places on her robe, especially the belt, and tightened them so the robe fit again, the way it did when she came here. She was ready to leave. They both were. It was time to leave this dark red metal island.

On the other side of the corridor that led right back outside the building, but on the other side, the grinning elder was already waiting. "Right up there, you two." He gestured to another ladder that led up to the top of the wall and onto a scaffolding that spanned most of the wall.

They had to climb back to the top, and then follow between the handrails right back around towards where they had come from, but onto a different part of that front side they couldn't have gotten to from where they were then. It led towards the middle of the front side, and onto a lengthy platform, which spanned a long way down onto the water, where it branched out left and right to form what the strange man had alluded to.

A pier. A platform that was dipped into the water just enough to move along with it, while still looking out enough for the two of them to walk on it. Tied onto a tiny handle on it by a rope, a small wooden rowboat drifted in the water. And on it, a very impatient dragon was waiting for the two of them, still with her scythe swung over her shoulder.

Only being out here and feeling the frosty breeze really drove home to Kris how well the wooden house isolated everyone in it from the winds and the rushing of the waves. He immediately felt the uncomfortable cold again when outside, in spite of him and Noelle drying up just before. Standing with one foot on the pier and with the other in the boat, their eager classmate waved them closer. "You guys ready?"

Noelle wasn't in much of a state to answer, and Kris merely nodded. "Sweet! Kingdom of Taint, here we come!" They took their time carefully climbing into the boat and grabbing hold of the sides to get used to how it constantly tipped back and forth with the restless water.

"You'll love this place! The surface there's just empty, but they dug an entire country into the landmass below. It's all underground, and they got everything. An underground city, underground woods, underground lakes, an underground fun house, anything you could ask for, it's there."

With the paddle in one hand, ready to row it, the human raised a finger. "Do they have a dark fountain?"

Still with her teeth showing, the dragon giggled and ruffled his hair. He made sure not to move an inch while she did. "Don't you worry your silly little head! Fountain's up over the Kingdom of Heaven, that's overseas from where we're going. But I've got you covered all the way there." Noelle sat in the back while Kris grabbed one paddle.

Susie took the other when she came back from untying the rope, and everyone had to keep their balance when the boat shook a little more again from being pushed away from the platform. It took them a while, but after some time, Kris and Susie got into a rhythm where they rowed the boat in sync.

The landmass they were rowing towards indeed had a mostly flat rock wall pointing in their direction far above. It was so enormous, looking all the way up alone made him dizzy. Maybe it was just a matter of perspective, but everything here seemed somehow bigger than in the realm around Canyon City. "So where's the kingdom of heaven?"

Susie took a moment to make sure she had the rod safely within the little frame at the side of the boat, and then suddenly, she stretched her left arm right into Kris' face to point that way. He was startled, but quickly faced the ocean she was pointing at. "Right over there." There were just endless black waves as far as the eye could see. And the waves seamlessly blended into the dark in the distance. Then she took her arm down and shrugged. "Can't see it from here, but it's there." If she said so.

Now that everyone was safely seated though, with the rope removed, Susie got up and pushed herself and the boat off the pier with a decisive kick with her boot. She almost stumbled, almost, but soon, both she and Kris got to rowing the boat together, each with their own paddle, facing forward. Rowing such a tiny boat through the heavy waves was taxing, and their progress towards solid land was about as visible to Kris as it was when he was swimming to that rig.

But it was not nearly as exhausting as swimming. For that, he was thankful at least. Staring at the precipice that hung over them more, the further they got, was uncomfortable to him. And it was hard not to be distracted and a bit scared every time the one uncovered spot on his arm brushed against the bare scales of her elbow.

He was slow and careful about it, but occasionally, he tried sneaking a glance up at Susie. Every time, he regretted it and immediately went back to staring at the hollow beneath the rock wall that was ever so slowly inching their way. Every single time, he looked up at her, she was grinning down at him. He was convinced that he wasn't making any sudden moves, and yet she always happened to pay attention to him. Was he so easy to read?

This slight dizziness from both Susie and the sheer size of that wall was interrupted when they were a little less than half-way there. He felt something touch the right half of his back, and immediately afterwards, a faint shriek came from behind him.

When he and Susie turned around to check on Noelle, she was clasping onto the bench she sat on and had a somewhat incomplete smile on her face. He wasn't really sure. She was blushing, completely tense and seemed almost alarmed, for lack of a better way for him to put a finger on what sense she was giving him. She tried to relax when she became aware that he was looking at her. Was there something wrong? "It's - it's okay. Everything's all right."

Susie turned back to face the front quite a bit before Kris and shrugged. "Now's as good a time as ever anyway. See that over there?" She pointed ahead. They could now see a lot more clearly into the gigantic cave that was carved into the mountain. "See those stairs?"

It was hard to miss those stairs. A fittingly scaled-up staircase led far, far up a smaller wall within the cave, which was so high up, there was no chance that they could see what was up there. "That's the way to the city. But it's a bit tricky. I made that mistake and took the stairs the first time round, we're gonna take a little detour. Keep going."

She grabbed his shoulder, but not in the painful way she usually did. She only applied as much pressure as she had to and raised raised the paddle. She wasn't rowing any more, so the boat turned until she started again. They weren't going straight for the beach, they were moving down the coast to the right. Away from the cave very obviously meant to be used to enter the city or what other place lay up there.

Even though this opening was a lot bigger, it wasn't the only one. They passed various caves that led into the mountain on their way. But they didn't actually make for solid ground until the opening straight to the city was long out of sight.

When they did, they stopped in the middle between a whole slew of entrances. In an area that was somehow brighter than the nigh-pitch-black ocean they came from. By the time he really took a moment to look around, most of the water was more in a tint of dark blue, as was the beach. An unnaturally big moon was shining down on them from here.

Overall, something about this whole location seemed familiar. Black spirals extended out of the water a little further off in the water. He felt like he had seen this whole place before somewhere. Susie just had them row straight to the beach and didn't stretch her foot over the edge and onto the ground until Kris could already feel the hull forcing its way through half a foot of sand. "There we are." She waited right next to the boat.

Kris followed immediately, but Noelle needed a little while to shake off the nervousness and dizziness from being at sea and from their general situation. "Get on with it!" Susie's impatient reaction startled her, but soon after it, she sped up and climbed out of the boat as well.

She led them closer to the wall. She didn't lead them straight towards one of the cave entrances though, but between two instead. "Okay, going to need some help on this one." She wound her arms around Kris and Noelle and then spoke up. "Hey girls! You can come out!"

Around the corner, from one of the caves, someone indeed walked around the wall and came their way. Noelle was startled enough to make a sound upon seeing who it was, and Kris wasn't sure what was going on either.

It was Susie. She wasn't looking up at them, but he didn't need her to to recognize her. The freckles, hair covering every part of her face that wasn't her muzzle, it was definitely Susie. And what was more, she didn't look like the Susie that was standing next to him. In spite of them all being in the dark world, this other Susie had purple scales, the hair that covered her face was in that familiar tone of brown and she wore the same tattered clothes she wore in school.

She was a little shorter than their Susie, and generally, looked the way she would have looked in the light world. On the other side, another person came out of the cave. And that person was Susie as well, identical to the one already approaching them. "Susie - Susie?" Noelle was audibly confused. But when the next two Susies included one that looked different from the other three, Kris began to realize what was going on. "What's happening?"

One of those two Susies differed from the others. She was was a little taller than the regular light world Susie next to her and had a two-handed longsword in her right hand. With slightly bigger arms, visibly wider, padded out legs, more muscular on both, and with visible abs beneath her chest that hung over her stomach unlike that of any Susie true to the she had a long and wide tail that befitted her form.

She was stripped naked save for two pieces of not very concealing swimwear which were made of chainmail and didn't completely hide the scales and what lay under them either. "Berserker..." He mumbled to himself.

The Susie that was still holding both of them tightly, nodded. He didn't look up at her, he could feel her nodding from the motions of her hair scratching against his neck. "Yep, the zerks are quite something, huh? They got nothing on the missies though." It didn't stop here. More and more Susies came out and began swarming them from both sides. Most just looked like regular light world Susie.

A lot of them were light world Susie with some gimmick. More berserkers, Susie dressed up as a nun, Susie dressed up as a bellydancer, Susie with smooth hair in a white dress, Susie as a cowgirl or gunslinger, two comically well-fed but well-proportioned Susies in their thirties dressed up as dominatrices.

The only one who had 'their' Susie's pink-black-dark-red colours was a single one who had weirdly stretched-out proportions and who was on a leash held by one of the other Susies, and walking on all fours. They were being swarmed, and before regular Susie let go of them, they were already surrounded with no opening in sight. "Okay, you two, okay."

When she did let go of the two of them though, she stepped aside, faced them and threw up her arms, even letting go of her scythe for a brief moment. "I've not been quite honest with you guys. Sorry, Kris." She brushed her hair aside so she could grin at him with both her bright yellow eyes contrasting the night around them. After that though, she swung her scythe up to have it hang over her shoulder once again. "I'm not actually Susie. My name's Axe."

Noelle was sweating, trembling and keeping her mouth covered with one hand at all times. When she heard this, she pointed at Axe. "That's - you're not Susie! That's why - that's why your tail..." She paused.

Axe and Kris both stared at her. "What about my tail?"

She didn't answer, her eyes only darted back and forth between them. Kris gestured Axe's way with an open hand. "So? What about her tail?"

It took the doe a little time to pull herself together, and even when she did, she inched away from both of them. "Nothing...nothing. Forget I said anything."

"Sublime work, effigy." The voice of a woman hissed down at them from above. It came from a woman who stood on a dark red cloud. The cloud spread forward into a curved, downward slope. She walked down its path until she was a mere few feet above the Susies around them.

Kris summoned his sword and got ready for battle, but when he did, shackles made of those same clouds formed around his his wrists and ankles and chained him and Noelle to the ground. They were allowed to stand, but they couldn't move.

She was a human. A grown young woman with tan skin and long, smooth and natural blonde hair. Old enough to be taller, but she couldn't have been much older than him and Noelle. She wore a deep red, silken toga - a robe that only held itself up by one of her shoulders, leaving the other bare. With loosely hanging pieces of cloth that dangled in the wind from her legs, her arms, along most of the length of it.

It had a major strand of its fabric hanging off her right arm, with glittering green bands on her arm, legs and waist. On her head, she was wearing something strange. On her head, were a crest or tiara made of black, wooden vines, and the antlers of a deer monster, either grown out of her head as though she was one herself, or attached to the tiara in a way that made it look that way.

Noelle was panicking as it was, but seeing this human seemed to set her off even more. "What is go - what is going..." She hyperventilated until Kris signaled to her by moving a little closer, that he was there with her. "What's going on? What are all these?"

The human woman kept her mouth closed while she chuckled at the terrified monster's reaction. When she opened it, her voice was a lot louder than before. "The Knight described them as the perverted obsessions of a lightner! Put to paper, but for no-one else to see."

The stream of Susies coming out of the caves and filling the beach just wouldn't end, there must have been hundreds around them.

The more they surrounded them, the more noisy the 'Susie's were getting. More and more often, you could hear one giggling, their smiles turned wider and wider and Kris was startled into avoiding directly looking at them altogether, when he did so with one of the Berserkers who stared back at him and licked her lips with half-open eyes. He made sure to focus his attention on the human woman instead. "Do you work for the knight?"

The tired-looking darkner above them could only chuckle at his question. "Perhaps. As of yet, we may be a keen man and his eager maid servant! But now that you are here, soon, we will be so much more."

"Are you their leader?" He pointed at the dragons around him and Noelle, just to make sure.

"Technically." Axe pointed at herself with the tip of her thumb. "I'm the leader."

"Keep to your place, effigy!" the woman above them hissed at her. "The Knight has chosen me as his prime servant."

"Kris...Kris, what is going on?" Noelle began to hyperventilate. She was having a panic attack, and Kris wasn't sure how to help her. He just looked her right in the eyes and tried giving her a look that would calm her down. He wasn't sure how and whatever he was trying, it wasn't working.

"All right, girls." Axe clapped her hands. "We got what we're here for. Let's pack 'em up and all head to Fortune's Keep."

"No!", the human woman shouted. "Keep only as many at the keep as absolutely needed. Faith, a few Mistresses and maybe some Grunts and Berserkers! The rest is to follow me!"

Real Susie's doppelganger was a little confused at hearing this. She tilted her head to the side and looked up at her. "Say what now?"

"We will set sail for the Kingdom of Heaven! Now that the lightners are in our possession, the throne awaits! Once this realm is mine, I will have the Knight's true attention!"

Axe sighed. "Wait, Tempts..." She turned to her fully and took a few steps back to be able to face her more easily. Where she went, the Susies around her stepped aside. "...Knight gave us clear orders. Keep the human alive and the lightners away from the fountain. Last thing you're gonna want to do is risk them getting away and lure them straight to it."

"What worth is this realm to him, if it is not in my control? What use is the fountain, if I cannot wield its power for him?"

"Look, all I'm saying is let's not get ahead of ourselves. We got the lightners now. We should devote all forces we got to keeping them right here, where they're in our possession, until the next time the Knight comes by."

The Susies went out of the way as the human sorceress lowered herself onto the ground. "You will obey me! We will set sail for the Kingdom of Heaven. Now!"

"That's stupid! I refuse to follow that order!" She put down the scythe and loosened her grip on it enough for it to slide down with its blade near her hand, something the real Susie did when she got ready for a fight with her axe already out. "Don't listen to her, girls! I'm in charge."

As soon as she said that, the same shackles that prevented Kris and Noelle from resisting against this ambush, were nor forming around Axe's wrists and boots, too.

The woman was now cackling at the sight of the upset and confused dragon. "Do you feel in charge? What gives you that impression? You're a lowly servant, like the rest of you! Nothing more, nothing less!" The more Axe resisted, the more the shackles tightened and the more force they applied towards pulling her onto the ground. It took a bit of a physical struggle on her part, but eventually, she stopped fighting back. "There we are. Had a change of heart?"

Even when the chains vanished from Axe's body, her shoulders hung down and she lowered her head. "You heard her, girls. Get the bags. Put the bigger one on the girl." And they did as they were told. From further behind, the dragon girls were passing two crude bags made of jute cloth, closed in on Kris and Noelle, and wrapped them over their heads to obscure their sight.

Soon enough, big dragon hands grabbed onto both of them from all sides, lifted them off the ground and carried them away. Kris struggled, summoned his sword and tried striking at them. He couldn't really strike at anyone since that requires swinging his arms, which he couldn't do, because the Susies were holding them tightly. He tried calling for Noelle to fight back, but she was too terrified to react to anything but an army of purple dragon girls hauling her god-knew-where.


	16. House of Cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An army of Susies hauls Kris and Noelle off to a castle of unexpected size.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 04

House of Cards

* * *

 

Kris tried to struggle. He tried to free himself from their grips, but there were so many of those dragon girls helping haul him and Noelle off through the rock wall's interior. And they were simply stronger than him. Noelle's squeaks and shrieks with hiccups in-between didn't do much to help him either. He was being moved and rocked around too much.

That and no part of him touching the ground was too much for him to have any real sense of orientation. The further into the mountain they carried him and Noelle, the more often some of their captors bumped into the walls or other surfaces.

The sheer amount of Susies between him and those walls softened the impact, but it carried over all the way to him through sudden pressure regardless. "For crying out loud, watch where you're going!" He liked to hope that was Axe talking. The one among all these Susie-lookalikes who actually looked the way Susie did in the dark world.

The rest were varying images of her light world form. In spite of them all being in the dark world. But it was impossible to tell whether it was Axe, since they all had Susie's voice, too. Almost all of them. Whether or not it was her, whoever was talking also made sure to step in when Kris was getting a little too uncomfortable with where they were putting their hands and pull a hand away here and there. "Stick to carrying him! Jeez."

At some point, he just closed his eyes and tried focusing on what he could perceive rather than what he couldn't. The temperature rose and fell. So did the humidity around him. "And for the last time, Maestra, stop trying. Everything you make, sucks!"

When they came to a halt, one of the only differing voices, a deeper, older sounding one, spoke to the one that did most of the talking. "Why don't we take this one up to our chambers? I promise he won't escape." From the sounds of it, the one that talked the most slapped that other one's encroaching hand.

"Yeah, I'm gonna say 'no' to that. Besides, dungeon's the most secure. More solid walls, chains, doors, everything. Hands off!" A few let go of his wrists, which he took as his opportunity to try struggling free and summoning his sword to strike at them. But it didn't last. "Don't let go of him, what the hell, I meant - never mind, just bring him to a cell! Something where you can chain him."

They caught him and had him in a solid grip again, before he could get anywhere. And the air around him indeed cooled down. Soon enough, he could tell they had brought him down to a dungeon. "Here! That one looks more like it. The one with that other - hey, you caught the sorcerer! Good work, whoever did that. Take the girl next door, so they don't pull anything."

He heard the clanking of a rusty door handle being pulled, and the screeching of a metal door that hadn't been oiled for a long time, opening.

"Got the keys?"

"Sure do."

Finally, they flipped him back with his feet on an uneven stone surface, but didn't neglect keeping a strong grip on him and pushing him against the wall. They pulled the gauntlets off his hands threw them on the floor, pinned his wrists against the wall, and put into rusty iron cuffs that were chained to it.

The cuffs were locked with that key by the adult dragon. "Okay, no need for that any more." By the time they got to removing the sack that covered his sight, most of the Susies had already left.

Only two were left by that point. One a Berserker, one of the slightly stronger Susies with broadswords and nothing on her body but swimwear made of chain mail, and a Mistress, a mid-thirties Susie with a whip and exaggeratedly voluptuous proportions, who wore purposefully revealing black fishnet stockings and an overdesigned black leather top. What in the world was he thinking, looking at them now?

"Where's Noelle?" He couldn't hear her anymore. She calmed down a bit along the way.

The Berserker gave the older Susie a questioning look. "He means the deer girl." He tried pulling away while the sultry-looking adult rubbed his cheek with her thumb. "Don't you worry about her. We left her to play with the new girl. She looked very hungry." They both laughed while they left. With a loud bang, the door between this dungeon and the halls they had carried him through, shut behind them.

While they did, he could finally hear Noelle again. "Easy there - easy Su..." Her voice was shaky, and the hiccups stopped her from talking fluently, more than the stuttering did. "No need to..."

"Kris!" His attention was immediately drawn to his left. Chained to the wall with him, was just the person he hoped to meet. Ralsei was locked in this cell with him. Fully dressed in robe and hat. And with wide-open glowing eyes, excited to meet him. "Finally! Those not-quite-Susies locked me up here."

"Well at least he found Ralsei. Now there was a bigger problem. "No - no need to come closer!" Noelle was more agitated before, and something in her cell was sniffing so loudly, Kris could hear it from here.

"Oh no." A dark suspicion crept up Kris' back. They said they left her with the 'new girl'. But the 'new girl' wasn't Axe. There was someone a little more recent. "It's Gobbler!"

"No - no -no, stay away! Help!" Noelle began shrieking of the top of her lungs. "Help! No! Don't!"

A male voice was calling out to them as well. "Someone help!"

Ralsei wasn't sure what was going on. "Who is Gobbler?"

He had to come up with a way to escape, and fast. "She's in danger!" He tried pulling at the chains, but that accomplished nothing. Of course chains and cuffs made to keep a human in place in the light world, would still hold here as well. But there was a difference. Humans in the light world didn't have any magic. He had at least some form of magic here, too.

He tried summoning his sword and shield, and in both cases, it worked. Except that that alone wasn't really useful. Then he noticed something. He dispelled and summoned them again. They didn't appear in full from one moment to the next. They started with their grips in his hands and expanded towards their full form from there. There was some outward movement or growth involved. And he wasn't sure how much force was involved when put to the test. Maybe he could use that here.

Instead of struggling upwards and away and having the cuffs slide down his forearms causing pain in the process, he did the opposite. He slid his arms backwards and down to slide the cuffs as close to his hands as possible. Then he angled his hands and summoned his weapons again. He had to try a lot of times to start getting to where he was going with this.

As he hoped, a tremendous force was involved in those weapon summons. He could even feel the metal press against it somehow. He just tried again and again, until he had his small, expanding shield and the hilt of his sword lodged in the cuffs. Then he did what he could to focus on that sensation, this impulse that always led to his weapons being summoned.

He gritted his teeth. It actually felt physically taxing and made his hands tense up when he felt the resistance from the iron that was in the way. But gradually, the metal began to bend and give in. Then it became harder and harder to further bend it, until it simply broke open. In the spots most deformed, it seemed to have turned brittle in the process. "It worked!"

He got off the wall and lost his balance so much, he almost fell over. The ground was uneven. The floor here was made of stones arranged as if they were flat stone bricks, but they were round and shoddily put together which made the floor tremendously bumpy. Then again, this was supposed to be a kind of prison, so making it comfortable was perhaps not the intention.

As fast as he could, he ran to the prince and adjusted his wrists so he could slide his fingers into Ralsei's cuffs. "Ouch!"

He stopped immediately upon hearing the prince voice his pain. He forgot that he had to pay attention to Ralsei's arms this time.

Which made getting the right angle more tricky, but his experience from doing it a second ago, allowed him to quickly get the hang of how exactly his sword and shield formed in his hands. And how to angle them in a way that didn't cut his dear friend's hands off. Once he did, all he had to do was pour his strength into overcoming those cuffs. And with clacking sounds louder than Noelle's shrieks, the prince was free.

He ran to the cell door to rattle at it and check. Locked. He turned to the approaching goat. "Can you open this door?"

"Yes, actually." He raised his soon glowing hand. He held it towards the cell door's lock with a circular swing that the light only followed with a delay. With some combined force, he and Kris could force the cell door open, rush to the next cell that Noelle's pleas for help were coming from, and repeat the process.

At the wall opposite from them, a weirdly proportioned, more feral-looking version of dark world Susie was creeping up Noelle. And she wasn't crawling onto Noelle, the doe was vanishing down that creature's throat and she was already gone all the way to to her armpits. It was swallowing her like a snake. It's hands served more as front legs to support itself on the wall. Noelle was completely out of it. She was driven to the point of tears and was already vanishing all the way up to her shoulders.

Kris charged at both of them, grabbed it's upper jaw with one hand and swung his sword at the creature with the other. He aimed for the waist to make sure he didn't hit Noelle. "No! Bad dragon! Let go!" His blade went pretty deep, it must have hurt, and the creature's angry tremors and the sudden force it was trying to shut it's mouth with pointed that way as well. Ralsei quickly picked up the pace and together, they repeatedly struck and kicked it. In-between, the prince pulled out his pistol, aimed and fired some well-aimed shots at the creature's sides to slow it down. "Spit her out! Spit her out!"

They both worked together to peel it's mouth open keep the dragon from biting down on his terrified classmate as well. It must have had a lot of deep wounds and bruises everywhere, until the prince determined that it was time to use his magic and pacify it. Once that was done, it's frantic-looking eyes dropped shut and it stopped moving.

They could finally get to pulling it off of the still screaming doe. While Ralsei held it's mouth open, the human pulled the beast by it's jacket. It took a long time and a lot of force to get her out. The dragon was visibly bloated and wrapped tightly around its prey.

She didn't stop screaming until she was free from the hips upwards and even then, she wouldn't really settle down, until they were already pulling the monster's maw off her hooves. The stench of drying saliva was impossible to ignore already. And her only recently dried off Christmas robe was completely soaked in it. "Hold still."

Lastly, there was one more person to free. In the corner of Noelle's cell, someone else was chained to the wall. A young man, he looked like he was only just old enough to be taller than them, but not all the way into adulthood just yet. Generally, he was about as old as the human woman in the red robe that seemed to command all the Susies. "Thank you. For a moment there, I thought she was a goner. And I was sure I was next."

He was dressed in a simple shirt and cloth trousers, with a ring of some stuffy, stretchable cloth wound around his waist and over his trousers like a belt. And he had blond hair, short, but just long enough for strands to look a bit like spikes hanging of to the back of his head, than bangs hanging off of it.. After that though, Kris had to lean onto his knees to catch his breath. Using his weapon summons to break open iron shackles was tremendously taxing for some reason.

While the human stranger walked past him, he and Ralsei went back to Noelle. She wasn't scared for her life any more. "Noelle? You're free. Can you walk?" She was too out of it to move. Even when he and the prince tried leading her away, almost pulling her by force. She just was still a trembling mess, unable to move an inch.

Then, to his terror, he heard someone move about the metal handle on the thick wooden door at the entrance to the dungeon. "Hello? What's going on here? What's all that noise?" It was a Grunt, one of the Susies that looked exactly the way she did in the light world when she was at school. Perhaps her jeans had a few less tears and holes than the real Susie's, but otherwise, she was identical to her.

Her jaw dropped when she saw them all free. But too fast for her to alert anyone else or react in some other way, two thin strings of dark red clouds extended from the human stranger's hands, straight to her neck and wrapped themselves around it. The man who appeared to have conjured them up, took up a solid stance.

With visible force in his arms, he pulled his hands, that the strings extended from, back. As if attached to them, the red clouds, formed in the same colour as those of the woman they met before, wound themselves back to forcibly pull the dragon to the front bars of this prison cell. "What the hell?"

The Grunt was choking too much to get too loud and not strong enough to withstand the force she was being pulled with. He waited until she was close enough, and then - with another powerful swing of his arms - the human forced the dragon's head to accelerate against the bars and bang her head against them enough to dent the bars, but also with enough force to knock her unconscious. "If we stay here much longer, there might be more coming. Noelle, look at me!"

He tried holding her by the shoulders the way he did with Berdly to get him to snap out of his tantrum. "I'm right here, okay? That thing's knocked out, but we have to move, okay?" It took her a second or two, but she eventually came around, snapped out of her trance and nodded. She made barely audible, affirmative sounds, but she didn't say anything.

While they led Noelle to the dungeon's exit door, the prince commended the stranger that followed them on what just happened. "That was a nice trick."

He smiled, with a soft gesture to 'present' himself. "Why thank you. I have quite a lot more like it in store."

Leading his classmate with one gloved hand, the human tipped at the man with the other. "Those clouds look a lot like...we saw a woman use similar ones."

The moment he heard this, the older human took his hand down, and the corners of his mouth dropped along with it. "I suspect I know who you mean." He described the robed woman the Susies seemed to take orders from to him. "Yes, that's her. I guess you could say we know each other. Her name is Temptress, in case that sates your curiosity. Speaking of which, by the way." He extended a hand to shake theirs and bowed afterwards. "Hi. My name's Dasher. Archer extraordinaire at your service. Well, I would be an archer, if I had my bow."

Very slowly and very carefully, they pushed the door open and peeked around everywhere they could. It led into a hallways, covered in ceramic tiles. This included the walls, on which hung paintings, usually depicting humans outdoors, with some recurring themes and objects between them.

Behind a pair of open double doors, off to the side, lay a kitchen. A modern kitchen, with stoves, a microwave and two electric ovens. In it, a plump purple dragon with brown hair, dressed in an all-white cook's uniform, complete with a chef's hat, was trying to fry something and judging by the dark smoke coming up from the pan, she had overcooked it. Kris gave their surroundings another look around, and then, with his metal boots off, snuck through the hallway and into the kitchen.

He crept up behind the cook and as soon as he was close enough, grabbed hold of her mouth and held it shut as strongly as he could. He shushed the startled dragon and began whispering to her. "I'm going to let go and you're going to not scream, okay?" When she nodded, he did as he said, but gradually enough that he could resume his grip if she went back on her word.

She threw up her hands and talked with as calm and quiet a voice as was possible for her. "I don't do all this fighting stuff, I'm just a cook, okay?" For the time being, that was enough and he stepped back away from her.

Kris looked over at her failed attempt at making food. "Did you try using more oil or not turning it up all the way, so you have more room to time it?" Maestra, the cooking-themed Susie he was talking to here, nodded. He heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the distance and pointed to where it came from. "Is Homemaker here?"

Again, Maestra nodded. Of course, Homemaker would be near where Maestra was. The cook put her spatula aside and wobbled into the hallway and to another door that she opened. Fully expecting this to be her alerting someone, he readied his sword and took up a battle stance. When the door fully opened and Maestra came back though, she was followed not by a Grunt or a Berserker.

The 'Susie' that followed her, had her normal build, but was wearing a black blouse with frills and a long black skirt along with an apron that was wrapped around both. She was about as shaken up at meeting Kris like this as the more wide dragon next to her was. "Please..." She was understandably careful around him. They were taller than him, and probably physically stronger, too.

But he was the one with the sword. "...don't involve me in all this. As long as you don't have something to clean, I'm the wrong person." Why were they both here though? Then again, he could imagine why. Of course the horde of Susies that were all about combat, left the cook and the maid as close to the prison as they could without actually putting them behind bars.

"I might actually have a few things to clean."

With Noelle in tow, the other two followed him to the kitchen by now. "Kris! Good news! I managed to chain the guard to the wall."

"Oh goodness. Look at you! I can smell it from here!" Noelle immediately drew the all the more distressed dragon maid's attention.

"As I said. We have a few things to clean. Is there something like a bathroom here?"

"The safest and best place for this would be the servants' quarters. But if you want to head there, leave me out of any fights. We told Axe we only cook and clean, we didn't fight for them, we won't for you."

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do if we run into more of them anyway. I don't think I can just cut them down like with the brawlers."

Ralsei joined him in keeping an eye on the corridor while Homemaker led them through the door she was behind before. "Then don't. Just do what you did in the Card Kingdom." It led into another, more narrow corridor, and from there, into a circular staircase that led straight upwards. The moment you went past the door, the smooth tiles made way for rough stone. And the staircase had 'windows', but they were just rectangular holes that led into pitch black caves.

"What?"

"Act! Flirt with them, I don't know."

"The flirting wasn't me! That was all the player. Besides, it was different. Those card kingdom people were...the Hathies were just a heart with tentacles. Those dragons are all Susie. I can't just go and flirt with Susie." His face stiffened up more, the more he thought about it. It made him uncomfortable. And nervous.

The prince stayed close by while they went up the staircase and rubbed the left side of his back. "But they're not Susie. You don't have to focus on the flirting so much anyway, just do whatever you think works."

All while following Homemaker up the stairs and making sure Noelle was okay, the two of them also checked the doors at every level they passed to avoid any bad surprises. Which may or may not have been a mistake, since not long after Homemaker told them that they were almost there, he and Ralsei opened one of the wooden doors, and just like that, Kris was staring an unsuspecting Grunt in the face.

No more than a metre away from him. Everyone involved froze in place, eyes wide on all three, even the dragon. With only his eyes, he looked over to Ralsei, but he didn't seem to have any ideas either. If they broke this inadvertent standoff, surely the purple Susie-clone would alert everyone in hearing range of their location.

Both sides were staring at each other, awaiting the other's first move. Both Kris and the Grunt with their eyes obscured behind their hair. Now was as good a time to put into practise what they were talking about. If only to prove to Ralsei that it was a stupid idea. Steadily and careful not to make any sudden moves, he raised his open hand to show that he was - for the time being - unarmed.

Then he formed an upwards pistol hand with it, tensed his forearm and then pointed at her, releasing hearts that blew her way. While he did, he stared as deeply as he could into what little of the dragon's one visible eye wasn't covered in brown hair and tried saying the first thing he came up with. "Stop covering your face like that. You have nothing to hide. Your eyes are beautiful."

Oh god, he messed up. If anything, he should have said something like 'pleasing to look at' instead. Or maybe he should have tried something poetic the way Ralsei did. No, this was all Ralsei's fault. Why did he make him do this?

Before he could overthink what he should have said any further though, he picked up on the Grunt beginning to move. The angle of her mouth had an alignment that was impossible for him to match with any face he had seen her original make. With her eye as wide as it could be and her mouth slightly open, she backed off, onto the wall on her side and knocked a painting off the nail it was hanging by.

The moment she noticed it falling, she stumbled and turned around just in time to catch it, and then fled the stone hallway behind a door. Well, for what they needed, it worked miracles compared to what Kris expected. "Okay." Without moving an inch, he stared at the prince. "Can you use your lockpicking spell to lock those doors?"

"If they're anything like the real Susie, some wooden doors aren't going to stop them."

"No, but it'll slow them down enough for us to know they're coming. Maybe in time to get ready."

This could have gone much, much worse. As relief about this situation diffusing itself overcame them, the goat shrugged and did as he was asked. In fact, he actually locked the doors in the whole hallway they met that Grunt in before following Noelle up to the dragon maid's quarters. The interior walls consisted of uncomfortably rounded stone bricks, just like in the dungeon.

When looking around, Kris and Ralsei found something bizarre. In spite of it all looking vaguely medieval, she had a modern bathroom. It was all made of stone, but a toilet, a bath tub, it was all there, complete with a working tap and showerhead. In the main room, there was a wide and flat wooden barrel, filled with water and soap and a washing board lay inside it. Homemaker had Noelle give her her robe to start off with.

The doe went to the bathroom to take a bath alone. The door to it only ever opened for her to pass through her clothes so homemaker could wash those as well.

At last, with all doors closed, Kris, Ralsei and Dasher could relax for a bit. The teenagers sat down against the cool stone wall, where they could watch Homemaker wash Noelle's clothes. "So Kris." Ralsei saw this as his opportunity to ask something that had been on his mind for some time.

"So you and Berdly said things like that Lancer, King Jevil and all the others were playing cards and that Canyon City was a pair of toy boxes in the light world. Those other Susies are something too, aren't they? What are they?" Kris didn't respond. He kept watching Homemaker and didn't say a word. Ralsei spent a long, awkward time, staring at him, hoping for an answer. "All right. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

While waiting, he got up to walk up to the barrel and wash and dry his gloves. As time passed by, they began to realize, that Grunt hadn't alerted anyone, otherwise, they would have been attacked. When finally, the door to the bathroom opened, she was back. Squeaky clean hopefully. At least the stench was gone.

Kris immediately covered his eyes with one hand and tried to do the same with Ralsei. "I'm wearing a towel, Kris." Once he had taken down both his hands, she smiled at him. "And yes, I'm feeling better now." Homemaker had hung up her clothes by a rack and lit a fireplace, the way the old man they met before they came to the mainland had, but the fireplace was in actual proximity to the rack, which helped dry them better.

Noelle came by several times to fetch another layer of clothing before disappearing behind the door to put them on. When she was done with everything else, the human and his goat got up to help her with her robe, the fingerless gloves and everything else that came with it. "Thanks. And you." She put her hands together and went up to Homemaker, who never got up from her washing board. "Thank you, for your help and hospitality. Sorry for inconveniencing you like this."

"Nothing to thank. I'm always happy to help. By the way. You." She gestured to Dasher and pulled him back on his feet by his hand. "Your belongings are here." She nigh hopped to a corner and brought to him an open crate with all manner of clothing. The stave of a bow was too big not to peer out above and below.

"As for you." She began addressing Kris and Noelle again. "The others brought you in as prisoners, so you probably have no idea how to navigate this place. I only moved in here a few hours ago, like all of us, but I don't really stray too far from here. This will be much more useful to you than to me."

She stood up to pick up a map from a shelf and hand it to Kris. It was like a short novel in width already when she first handed it to him in it's completely folded-up state, but whenever he tried further folding it up, it turned out to be even bigger. He eventually gave up and folded it together to not risk it getting in contact with the soap water that spilled from the barrel. "Oh, I'm sorry. That is indeed a little inconvenient. Follow me."

She led them back into the staircase, one more floor upwards and through two doors into a bigger room. It was empty, but in contrast to the dim light of torches, this one had an actual electric chandelier hanging from the ceiling, so it was much brighter. Here, there was enough open space to fold up that map.

It didn't even outline individual rooms, only quarters and wings within it, and it was actually a set of several overlapping maps that seemed to depict different floors in a castle that was taller than it was wide. Nonetheless, it prompted an obvious question from the prince. "How big is this place?"

"Do you not know where you are?" Kris, Ralsei and Noelle shook their heads. The maid wandered along the corners of the room, all of which Kris would eventually reach in the process of opening up the map.

"'This place' has a name. It is called 'Fortune's Keep'. It is a flying castle and when in use, harbors an entire country's worth of people. Big enough to be ruled by four kings and an Emperor, but when it arrived in this realm, they left the castle and spread everywhere they could. I'm actually surprised you know so little of it. Your friend here is one of the people that lived here. When the Knight freed us and we found it empty, how could we resist, but to claim it for ourselves? You have seen the servants' quarters. So much of it is so comfortable. Much more so than where we came from. But I digress."

She walked over to one section of the map that, as far as Kris could understand, outlined the bottom of the castle. "We are here." She bent forward to point at a little corner with a staircase that had an identifier attached to help see where it was on the next floor.

"Even up here, we're still at the bottom of it. I'm not sure what your business with Temptress and Axe is. But if you want to win over more of us for your side, I might know someone in your reach, who could help." She began detailing their path, describing the rooms they were to look for, and which staircases to follow. "If there is someone who can win over some of us, it will be her."

Noelle wound up being the one that spelled out what they were all thinking. "I don't think we can orientate ourselves with a map this big."

Kris said nothing, but he knew how to solve this problem. He walked over to Homemaker, summoned his sword and straightened out a corner of the section of the map the dragon was on. To her shock, he then struck right onto the floor, cutting straight through the map. He pulled it out of the stone floor, but kept it lodged through the map. "Goodness. What are you..."

He pulled the blade along the outline of the two bottom floors and carved it out of the rest of the map. Then he picked up the much more manageable, smaller segment and began folding up the rest. "I see." Now that she understood, she came closer, pulled a pencil out of a pocket under her apron, took his map and began drawing the path she had described and shown to them on the map just a minute ago. "There. Now finding your way should be more than possible."

While Noelle thanked the friendly dragon a few more times for good measure, Dasher entered after them.

Apparently, he had taken this opportunity to put on his real clothes. He had taken off the barely tailored drapes from before and instead wore tight silk trousers, the shiny surface of which glittered in the light of the chandelier. On his chest, he wore a green vest with patterns of golden thread stitched onto it, along with a leather collar hanging off his shoulders. The vest and the collar, were covered in blue feathers that stuck to it without Kris really recognizing, how.

The feathers in the middle of his shoulders were long enough for quite a bit of them to hang off of them. Held up by the belt, the leather holdings of an epee dangled the weapon they were made for to his side. Off his left shoulder hung a quiver with arrows. With his right arm, wound around his right shoulder, Dasher proudly sported his longbow. The content smile spoke volumes of how glad he was to have it back.

And on his head, he now wore a wide hunter's hat with a significantly longer blue feather strapped onto it. Long enough to swing with the air following every move of the archer's head."Say." Once Homemaker was sure that they were set, she left to head back to her quarters. Meanwhile the prince walked closer to look up to their now better prepared. "Now might be a better time to ask. Could you tell us a little more about who you are?"

Dasher adjusted himself to puff out his chest a little more and proudly gave his garments a slight twitch to flaunt them. "Why of course. I told you before, I am Dasher. Archer extraordinaire. Brother in arms to all men I encounter." He leaned over towards Noelle and pulled a red rose, seemingly out of nowhere. "And charmer to all the dames."

Noelle was startled and grabbed the rose on impulse, but wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "I came to this realm along with the very halls you walk with me now. Along with Temptress and everyone else. Most spread out to explore our surroundings. I tailed a fearsome Knight to the coast beneath the Kingdom of Taint. I watched him do things that could only spell trouble, and considering this..."

He looked over to the door to make sure that Homemaker wasn't present any more. "...this draconic infestation, my suspicions proved true."

"Why, what did he do?"

The archer took a swingful step back. and raised his arm. "He made like this." He swung it along the length of the ground.

"And he chanted 'Queen's Delight!' and the ground roared and gave way to an infernal gorge out of which these terrific purple creatures ascended. But Temptress was with him, and she knew too well, how to spot me, so before I could warn anyone of the horrors the Knight had unleashed, I was made a prisoner to those horrors within my own home. Now it is too late. The others must have already encountered these creatures. These 'Susies' as you call them."

"Can you tell us what he looked like?"

"I'm afraid not, his armor was heavy and very thorough in not leaving an inch of him exposed. But whoever forged his arm- and shoulderpieces, must truly appreciate the female form. Believe me, you will certainly know it is him, should you ever see him with your own eyes."

"So if you're from here, you know your way around, right?"

"Of course. I know these halls like the back of my hand."

Kris opened his map back up and handed it to the taller human. The directions the dragon maid had drawn onto them should have been self-explanatory. "Fascinating. Your destination is at the halls of the Parchment Elders. Come on, friends. I have been there myself many times."

Without further ado, he opened a different door and led them through another staircase and went on. "Fortune's Keep isn't our real home, it is more of a holiday chateau that our people dwell in and travel with, whenever the lightners choose to send us to a different realm for a while, and it is what we use to travel back to our true home as well. We don't even live here most of the time, but there are a few peculiar figures that always live here without fail. The Parchment Elders. Most of them are mentally absent and speak only of strange riddles and lore, the meaning of which is never clear to us. And their halls differ from most of the castle as well."

The stone corridors and staircases didn't become any less constricting from here on in either. They really were modeled after the back rooms and tunnels used by servants in old-fashioned castles. And climbing these staircases was strenuous in it's own right. At least in narrow areas like this, running into patrolling Susies was an unlikely thing, which was probably why it hadn't happened more than once by now. "Kris, wait. Slow down."

He was scouting ahead with Dasher until Noelle slightly pulled at the drape that hung over his shoulder. "Thank you. For...I'm sorry I was a burden before." It was understandable, considering what she was like and how confusing this all must have been. "It just was all a little bit much for me at once. And then that Susie...monster...thing. You know what I mean."

"Gobbler." He didn't think twice about it until it was too late and he had already told her the name. And that he knew it.

"Yes. But Susie - I mean all those - other Susies. Do you know them somehow?" He moved along, slow enough to stay with her, but he didn't respond. "I mean you knew the names of some of them. Pink Susie said you guessed some other name right, too."

"Axe." He flinched. He did it again.

"Axe. Yes. I...it just feels to me like you know them somehow. You know something about them, don't you?" Oh no. This was why he didn't like talking to people in the light world. To avoid situations like the one he was stuck in now. He was scared of something like this as it was, but how was he going to explain it away now? "Kris, I can tell something is bothering you. You can trust me."

He couldn't trust her. He couldn't trust anyone. Not with things like this. Susie finding out about Jaws and Noelle seeing Samuel with his new face was more than he was comfortable with already. And the longer he went on without saying anything, the worse it got. "Come on. Whatever's on your mind can't be that bad. I think I already know any-"

"If he doesn't want to talk about it..." The prince stopped her right there and squeezed himself between Noelle and Kris. He was rarely ever as stern as he was lecturing Noelle now. "...if he doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't have to. Okay?" Luckily, that was enough to get her to leave him alone.

"That's it!" Finally, the older human had followed the inward corridor to it's end and swung open the door. By presenting them with an exit to the narrow stone corridors and dizzying staircases, he stoked up hope in an impending conclusion to their strenuous ascent.

False hope, as right behind the door, the broader hall was immediately preceded by more stairs, up to the main area this section of the castle was dedicated to. Provided that they could trust their map of course. "If we make it to the other side from here, we can take another servants' wing straight to the Parchment Elders." Great, so once they were past these stairs, the big thing to look forward to, was a whole lot more stairs.

Since this hall was about twenty feet wide, the torches were further apart from one another and it was a lot darker in here. Kris preferred to 'climb' along the felty red carpet up those stairs, to make less noise and ascend more slowly in case there was someone at the top.

And there was. Two Berserkers were casually strolling their way. One staring off at one of the paintings that hung between the torches. The other was inspecting her sword. When Dasher was already kneeling down and readying his bow, the younger human pushed it down and shook his head at him. Even if he had let him, how would that have played out?

He maybe would have hit one of the two, and they'd just both either attack Kris and the others, or alert other nearby Susie lookalikes. He had to come up with something else. There were sideways doors behind the approaching dragon girls, but there was no way to get to those without them noticing.

He didn't know whether they were aimlessly wandering around or patrolling or if they were patrolling, how much of the corridor and staircase Kris and the others had come from, their route entailed. "You know what?" Dasher patted him twice on the arm and similarly, gestured Noelle and Ralsei to rush after him and so they did.

Without any stops, he pushed them one floor right downstairs and took the door that lay in the same spot, but one floor below. It led to an identical, lengthy hall, up which he led them with more confidence. He didn't let them stop until they were already half-way up the stairs, but once they were, they could slow down. Kris took the first opportunity he got to examine the surroundings a little more closely.

He didn't open any of the doors, but something occurred to him in the paintings. One in particular for instance featured a man sneaking away from a campsite with three swords. He could have sworn, he had seen that exact one at the bottom near the kitchen and the dungeon. And this wasn't the only one. Leaving only a few metres in the middle, there were tables arranged in groups near the doors. And there was no-one else here. At least not ahead of them.

"Where do you guys think you're going?" Susie's voice alerted all three of them when they heard it. It came from one of two berserkers, which apparently had been running after them. "See? Told you I heard something." They must have followed them through the wide-open doors they left behind in the archer's haste.

"Run!" Dasher was about to grab Kris by the forearm and pull him and Noelle along, but he refused to budge. "What are you doing?" There was no point in running. Even at first glance, he had no doubt those two were as strong as they were able to endure running after them. He could tell from here, that they weren't going to outrun them. Running only ran the risk of running into more Susies. "We have to go!"

One of the two barely dressed dragons chuckled. "That human's smart."

"Yeah, like running woulda done anything for you lightweights."

They both raised their two-handed swords. "So you going to be nice and come with us, or do we have to use force?" Whichever way they took this, a fight couldn't be avoided. Some nice words of a cheesy pick-up line weren't going to spook those two out of getting rough. "If you're thinking of running away again, I'd really think twice."

He had to come up with something. With the brawlers, finding a way out other than carving and shooting their way through with swords and guns wasn't an option, they were plain out to kill them.

There had to be another way with Temptress' dragons. He thought of the Card Kingdom. Where most darkners had something about them, a theme that was important to them, or something that motivated them to either fight or not fight. And what caught his eye most here?

These Susies were more toned than their original. They looked more like what she would have looked like, after several years of hitting the gym every day and a planned, protein-rich diet. His eyes went over those abs, visible even in as little light as they had here. Those strong arms and legs. And unlike the model that inspired them, they had no qualms putting every bit of them on display.

Then it occurred to him. That was it! It was right in front of him. They put their muscles on display. And they were doing it on purpose. If they didn't want to, they could have just put on something over the underwear they started off with, but they didn't. He reached behind his neck and under his arm to undo two straps that held his shoulderpiece in place and began to unwind his cape to take that off, too. "What are you doing?" Even Ralsei was confused.

Now with his arms more free and more visible, he struck a pose with his left forearm pointing upwards and tensed up his upper arm to make his own arm muscle as visible as he could. Which still wasn't a lot. And it didn't have much of an effect yet, either, so he aligned his feet in the opposite direction and tried the same with both arms.

Then, in a soft motion, one began raising her finger his way. "Wait, are you trying to flex? Is this a flex?" The two dragons exchanged a glance, and burst out in laughter. "That's adorable, but that's not a flex. THIS is a flex!" One of the two Berserkers struck the same pose Kris did. But when she did, you could actually see the surface shifting on them. "See?" Not long after she saw the one Berserker draw everyone's looks and revel in the attention she was getting, the other one joined in, too.

So far, so good. Kris slipped back into his asymmetrical first pose, with one forearm pointing downwards and the other upwards. And as he hoped, the drakes imitated his pose to show off their muscles. He struck a third one, and didn't fail to make sure they were still smiling.

By now, Ralsei hasted back, next to him, and copied his pose. You couldn't see his upper arms, as they were hidden in his robe, but it probably didn't do any harm. When Kris ran out of different poses, he just started copying dramatic poses he had seen Asriel copy off some cartoon show about muscular men that summoned spirits to fight in their stead.

Of course all while not forgetting the obligatory sideways stare with a finger gun. Half-way through, Dasher came along to stand next to the two boys and join in on the poses. All Kris had to do, was hold on. He kept up this spontaneous dance-off in the light of distant fires, until the Berserkers found this too silly to continue, stopped posing and dancing and just laughed. "That was...something. What a bunch of weirdos." One of the two backed off. "But you know what? You guys are alright."

"Hey! Where are you going?" the other one shouted after her.

"I don't want to be the girl that puts them in chains. You do it if you feel like doing it."

She looked back at the three of them. Ralsei and Dasher were relaxed and seeing where this was going. Kris was more than anything relieved that this situation could be diffused. Noelle never joined them, she was just off past the top of the stairs, sweating and gnawing at her fingertips.

She shrugged and turned around to follow her lookalike. "Yeah, nah. Neither do I. You guys are off the hook for now. But remember, if anyone asks you, this whole encounter - never happened. Okay?" After that, she turned around to walk to the staircase for good. "I should visit them in their cell some time."

The party stayed in place to watch and listen to them to make sure this wasn't some ruse. "To do what exactly?"

"I don't know. Train them?"

"Yeah right." With a dismissive tone to her voice, one of the two grabbed the door to the staircase by the handle and pulled it shut.

Kris closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was over, the issue was resolved, for now at least. Now they could slowly move ahead and be careful not to run into any more of them. After they had moved on for a bit, they realized that Noelle was staying in place, standing at the door.

When grabbed by the wrist, she gave off a short, disapproving sound, but they had to move on, so eventually, Kris and Dasher just pulled her along and broke her out of it. The further away she was from that door, the more willingly she came along. And along with this newfound calm, they had more time to admire the paintings between the doors. Gradually, he started to notice the recurring themes.

The painting with the thief featured a total of seven swords in the picture, and there were a lot of other paintings with swords on them. But none of them had seven. Another, similar recurring object were goblets. Another one five-pointed stars like on the hilt of his sword, and lastly, lengthy wooden rods. By the time they were almost at the door, all the way on the other side, he was just loudly listing the recurring objects. "Five swords...two swords...seven goblets..."

On that last one, Noelle chuckled and interrupted him. "It's cups. Swords, cups, pentacles and wands."

"Is this some kind of card game?"

"It can be used for that, but it's more to read people's fortune. It's tarot." The moment she mentioned it by name, he understood. He really knew nothing about tarot cards until after his travels with Berdly. You remember 'the devil' right? That's a tarot card, too. Thing is..." She didn't try looking at him any more.

She wouldn't have managed making eye contact anyway. "...I know this will - this will sound crazy to you - I mean promise you won't...I don't know." He said nothing. "It's...The man on the island. It isn't just that he lives alone and fits as a hermit."

Even though she knew it did little to prevent Ralsei and Dasher from hearing what she said, she came closer to him and lowered her voice. "It's not just that he is a hermit. He looked exactly like my 'The Hermit' card. But that's impossible, right? He's a character I made up. How could he be real?"

She realized that going off their surroundings, this was only a minor question that fell into a broader one. The paintings around them weren't any standard or otherwise commercial tarot suit. They were her very own designs. Designs she had drawn, scanned, edited and then printed onto little cardboard slates. Small enough to comfortably hold with your hand. And yet she was surrounded by those same art pieces, each as wide as an entire wall would have been in a normal house. "How is any of this real?"

He just shrugged and moved on. Yes, it was crazy. That was why he didn't talk about it to her or anyone outside of Berdly and Susie. Noelle understood this now. She knew he wasn't excluding her from a new hobby. And yet, she couldn't help but stop and watch him follow Dasher until he checked on her and stopped to make sure they didn't lose her.

Now that she knew the dark world wasn't just a story to play-pretend with, she didn't see why he wouldn't open up to her about the Susies. How was it that after all these years, he trusted her as little as always?

Then again, perhaps it was a little silly to read too much into something that was understandable. Of course he wouldn't exactly chase her with his explanation on why the army of attractive dragon girls in his room, some of which wore little to nothing and had very pronounced proportions, all happened to look like his high school bully.

She just wished she had known sooner.


	17. Susie in the Sky of Diamonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the familiar-looking halls of the Parchment Elders, the heroes look for someone who might help them recruit from the enemy.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 05

Susie in the Sky of Diamonds

* * *

"We made it!" It had taken a bit of a detour through a few music rooms, into a higher layer of servants' quarters and another long set of stairs, but apparently, they finally arrived at their destination. "These are the halls of the Parchment Elders."

Dasher, the proud-looking archer who was guiding them, had led them into a tiled hallway.

One step further from stepping out of the door, and you were already walking into a windowed wall, except that you couldn't see anything but darkness behind the windows that they intuitively passed by, all the way to their...to their..."It's our school."

Noelle was only spelling out what Kris was thinking as well. "This is our school, and that is our classroom." The hallways of their night-time school building only came in shades of dark blue here, everything looked as if moonlight was shining inside, but as usual, when you looked out of the window, there was no moon to be seen. A strange, discomforting smell filled the air that wasn't there in the light world.

Kris checked if it was the heating. The heating under the windowsill was cold, it must have not been running for a long time now. And the door to their classroom was closed. Outside of their group of four, it was completely quiet here. Every step one of them made, carried its echo to every corner thanks to the building's acoustics.

Kris went past Noelle, grabbed the door handle and ever so carefully, pushed the door open. Instead of their own classroom, he found a much bigger, dark hall behind it. The walls were lined with torches like in most of the castle, and in the middle of the empty floor, an obscure figure was holding a pen and a piece of paper.

In fact, he was surrounded by sheets of paper, they were everywhere, and they were all written on. The figure was mumbling something to themselves. "...times e to the x plus two to the x, divided by the logarithm of...strangers. Can I help you?" Only by then, was he close enough to see why they were called 'Parchment Elders'. It seemed obscure at first, because this darkner resembled the ones in the Card Kingdom a lot more, he was more abstract, more obscure.

It was a vaguely humanoid creature, and it had a face painted onto its head, but upon closer inspection, their entire person was made of paper. Their stringy fingers were just shredded strips of it, their head and torso larger sheets wrapped together into cylinders and covers for top and bottom. On its head, it wore a hat made of a smooth, transparent material.

A long, awkward silence ensued, wherein Kris and the paper mathematician stared at each other, while Dasher, Ralsei and Noelle slowly followed him. Eventually, the older human pulled him back a bit. "I don't think he's who the maid was talking about. I think we're looking for a dragon."

"Right. No, no we don't need anything."

Noelle apologized for them on their way out. "Sorry for bothering you."

The paper mathematician waved it off. "No problem." And then went right back to mumbling about his problem.

Back in the hallway and following it into the main entrance hall, Kris figured that this elder related to math class in some way. He followed the wall on his left and opened another door to a classroom. Again, behind it was no classroom, just a dark hall covered in paper and within, a similar looking person to the one from before. "...and then Tom buys Myrtle a dog, but they're both so irresponsible, they basically forgot the dog completely by the time they're back home and..."

He was describing the contents of an old novella. This was English class. He stopped and stared at Kris. Nope, this was definitely not a dragon. Slowly and without a word, he closed the door again and then took a moment, before he walked to his next door of choice. Maybe he was going at this the wrong way. Instead of just opening random doors, it might have been best to go straight to his Mom's classroom.

Behind its front door, there was another paper person. His chest was cut in a particular way to make it look like a white suit jacket and tie over a white shirt. When this one looked back at him, he was greeted immediately. "Hello there. Would you like to talk about our lord and saviour, Jesus Chri-" he slammed the door shut, before the elder could go on any more. So his Mom's classroom related to religion class.

Perhaps he had to go through all the doors after all. Behind the next one was yet another dark hall and the paper creature behind this one was mostly painted black all around their body. Shredded stripes of paper hung off the lengthy snout of their grey face like whiskers and two wider, curled stripes of black paper hung off the sides of their head.

They looked up at him from a scroll and beckoned him with a raspy voice. "Hey, ya wanna talk about our lord and savyah the holoc-" He shut the door as fast as with the last person. So this was history class.

Another door. "So if we add four hundred mililitres of a solution with a concentration of five point eight percent, we..." Chemistry.

But after that, came the door to what was the empty classroom in the light world. This was one of two things that made it stand out. The other one was that the smell got stronger, the further they went down the hallway and the closer to the door. Dasher smirked when he saw Ralsei struggle to breathe for a moment. "The odor takes some getting used to. I wonder who it comes from."

"Don't you mean 'what'?"

"Oh I know what it comes from, the question is who is smoking it."

When Kris opened the door, unlocked just like all the others, he had to step back and cover his face behind his arm. Whatever was in the air here, it was concentrated in that room and this higher concentration of it was being released through the doorframe.

In fact it was so thick, you could see it, and it made making out the figure at the heart of it more difficult than it had to be. "Hayyy, visitors! Here's a surprise. Come in, come in. I don't bite." At least there definitely was someone there and she was alive. Strewn across the floor, sometimes with several layers stacked on top each other were large crate-shaped pieces of electronic equipment. In one corner, Kris saw a familiar-looking keyboard.

In various places, arranged close by one another, were soft, stuffed balls of cloth. Some as he could feel, were plush. They were - perhaps purposefully so - large enough to use as fauteuils and couches for one or multiple people to sit on, even though you couldn't keep your balance when sitting on them. In the corner, a purple dragon sat - or rather lay on one of them.

When she heard Ralsei and Noelle cough due to the haze, she apologized. "Oh, sorry. Didn't expect anyone to come here. Just a sec, I'll have this fixed any moment."

She lazily rolled to the side and off her makeshift bed, and once on the floor, got up to walk into the opposite corner, and fetch a ventilator, which she just placed in the middle of the room with its front pointing at the doorframe, plugged into a multiple plug that lay beneath an empty bag of chips and turned it on. "Gotta get better some time soon now."

She was about Susie's size. Well, maybe slightly taller and wider. She was definitely bigger than when she first came into being, and she had more hair than then-Susie. With most of the dragons in this castle, you could at least see part of one eye and a bit of the upper half of her face. Not with this one.

Everything above the snout was covered. She wore a conspicuous pair of oversized sunglasses, with shades in the shape of stars and everything that wasn't covered by those, was covered by hair instead. She wore a black tank top instead of a white shirt, and she wasn't wearing her jacket the usual way - Susie's way with her arms in the sleeves either.

Instead, it was just hanging off her shoulders like a cape and her arms were free. And she had a more relaxed smile than Kris was used to seeing on her. As soon as he recognized her, he raised an eyebrow and came closer to ask if it was her. "Headbanger?"

"Kris!" The scolding tone in Noelle's voice stung, and she came up to him to pinch him with her elbow. "You can't just call her a headbanger."

"Dude, no sweat." The dragon raised her open hand, to let it drop for an awkward handwave and lumbered back in position to let herself fall back into the softness of her 'chair'. "That's my actual name. Headbanger. Friends call me 'Banger'. Actually, you can too, who cares, right?"

The human pulled himself off of Noelle's grip and walked closer to inspect her water pipe. "What are you doing?"

Banger put the mouthpiece in her mouth for a second and then began leisurely nodding without stopping. "Just hanging about. Havin' a good time. Not like the others want me around any more, right? Got myself holed up here with lots of pot. Want some?" She offered him the mouthpiece, but he just pushed it away.

Noelle couldn't help but notice the disappointment in Kris' voice when he talked to this Susie he supposedly met for the first time. In fact, he sounded pretty upset. "Banger, you're supposed to be 'cool' one. Not like this. You're supposed to be rock star Susie, not stoner Susie. What is all this? Why are you taking drugs? Where's your guitar?"

"Guitar's gotta be somewhere here." Again, she couldn't be bothered to actually get up from her chair and just rolled off of it and half-crawled through the mess around her, until she reached behind an old, fallen-over synthesizer. "Found it, there we go." At least she still had her black, spiky electric guitar, and with it in her hands and herself back in the chair, she got to tuning it.

The others took the time they were given to pull some of the other seats closer and sit down around her. "Can't promise much though, don't have all my stuff rigged up any more. There we go." Eventually, Kris joined the others in sitting next to Headbanger while she started playing and singing a slow, depressing tune. "When the light is running low and the sha-"

"No." Stern, and with no shame in interrupting her, he pointed at her and told her to stop, straight to her face. "Just no. You're supposed to play 'sick riffs'."

The only expressions you could see on Banger, were on her mouth. And unlike what Kris and Noelle would have expected from the real Susie, she wasn't bearing her teeth at him, even now. In fact, after staring back at him for a few seconds, she twitched and went back to tuning her instrument. "Right. I can do that, too. Gimme a while though. Tuning on this baby's all messed up right now. So, what leads you guys to my place? Actually, sorry to ask, but who are you guys?"

Before they could answer, she went on. "Actually." With nothing but her finger, she pointed both at Dasher and Noelle. "You guys remind me of someone. There's this antler girl who showed up a while ago, she kinda looks a bit like both of you. Are you like her parents or something?" When they weren't meeting her with the reaction she was expecting, she went on to nod Kris' way. "Or you two? No?" They just shook their heads. "Well coulda been."

"Do you mean Temptress?"

"Yeah, dude. That's the name. So she's still around. That one, sheesh. What a hoe. The moment she showed up, I hadn't ditched the others yet and she was already making it all about herself."

"Making what all about herself?"

"Ah right." She seemed to lose balance for a moment and stopped testing her guitar's strings and fine tuning them a bit more each time. "Forgot, you weren't there, right? So there was this knight guy, and he was doing his usual thing, being all serious going 'effigies! You will follow this one's command and serve me!' and 'raaagh' and all that. You know, all the stuff he's been doing since he had 'em swap me out for pink girl."

He stopped her there with a raised finger. And held it extra close to make sure she noticed. "Pink girl?"

"Oh right. So just today, this new girl showed up. 'Bit more beefy than the others, and with pink scales instead of purple. And like, dark red- or purplish hair and spikes and stuff. First I thought 'nice, more fans', but right after, this knight dude showed up in this weird ass armor. Made him look a bit like a perv. Then he beat up a few of us - wait, you know who 'we' is, right?"

"The other dragons?"

"Right, sorta, close enough. So then be beat up a few of us to show us how strong he was, then he beat me up, got a scar on my back ever since, and then he told 'em he's gonna beat up the rest of us again and again unless pink girl's their new leader and they do what he says."

"So, who was the leader before?"

"Dude, it was me."

"You were the leader?" Kris found this a little hard to imagine.

She raised her hand to wink at him, as far as she could with only a hand and by making a clicking sound with her mouth. "Fuck yeah I was."

"I was thinking you'd have a band instead."

"It's both. I was the girl in charge, and I had a band. Dude..." This excited her enough to actually sit back up before continuing. "It was totally awesome. We used to live in those underground caves and travel from cave to cave to set up concerts and all the others would follow us to rock along. That was all there was for us, day in, day out. For as long as I can remember. Until today, when pink girl and the knight showed up."

Then, the short sequences she was playing got a lot louder. "Yeah no, not quite. Gonna take a while to get this right."

All that said, he started to understand why Homemaker sent them to her. "Banger, don't you want to go back to where things were?"

"Whaddya mean?"

He was glad to notice Ralsei backing him up. "You were their leader once before, right? If you try to be their leader again, and we show that you're better than Axe, they might switch sides and join you, right?"

"You come with us, we help you beat Axe, and you get the others to help us get to the dark fountain. They don't even have to help, they just have to not get in our way."

When she snorted, faint and tiny flames came out of her nostrils. It was impossible to see her eyes, but it was clear that she was staring at the prince, before she went back to tuning her instrument. "You know what? Give me some space. Let me think about this." Clear words, for someone who wasn't of a clear mind. Kris and Ralsei knew better than to further pressure her now and got up.

Waiting for Headbanger to clear her mind and overthink their offer was a good opportunity to get some fresh air. Well, at least better air than in here. Noelle followed them on their way outside. Dasher, not as much. In fact he got up to sit right next to her.

While inching closer, he noticed the doe staring at him and nodded her way. "You three take a break. I will keep our friend company." When he realized that she was still staring at him and gave her another wink. "Don't you worry about us, pretty lady. We'll be fine,"

She was hesitant to leave the intoxicated musician alone with the self-professed 'charmer to all the dames' but eventually, she followed after the other two teenagers. "Kris." When she came back from the hallway that led to the room Banger was in, the other two were sitting and kneeling on the floor, staring out of the front door while not right in front of it to let the smoke through.

She sat down next to him, but stayed quiet to give him a moment to prepare for what she knew he expected her to bring up again. "She didn't know who you are. But you know a lot about her." He kept staring outside. "Kris, what's wrong?"

He was backed into a corner and didn't know how to get out. Even if he died or otherwise went back to the light on the metal island, before they first met Axe, they were going to run into the Susies one way or another either way. "I know the Susies are yours the same way the hermit was mine. All you have to do is say it. Come on, I told you about my cards. It's your turn."

When he realized that Ralsei wasn't telling her off this time, he brushed his bangs away and turned her way, but he remained silent all the same. "Are you so afraid that I'm going to tell Susie?" Did she expect him not to be? "I promise I won't tell her. You can trust me, you know that. I know it will be hard, not to talk about all this, but we could try and pretend it never happened. Or even if we didn't, I could still just say they were other people. There are 'other people', right?"

He nodded and she smiled at him. "See?"

The prince shuffled a little closer and placed a hand on Kris'. "She seems nice enough to me. And you two...you're pretty close with each other. Are you really just classmates?"

He shook his head and stared off to a corner on the floor. "She's something like a cousin."

"How long have you two known each other?"

"For as long as I can remember."

"Did she ever break or abuse your trust?"

"No."

"Even once?"

"Nope."

"Then how bad can it be?"

He pouted and his eyes shifted in Ralsei's general direction. The prince was right though. He couldn't avoid this forever. Berdly told him about his toy box, Noelle about her cards. It had to happen, even though he really, really didn't want it to. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled in a long, drawn-out sigh before he spelled it out, staring daggers at Noelle all the time while he did it.

"They're pictures. All of them. I know them all, because I remember what I thought about when I was drawing them. If I thought anything. I have a lot of doodles of them, too, but all the special Susies I've seen here are the ones that I've put effort into drawing at least once."

At least it was out. It was relieving, just like Noelle expected it to be, and he unfolded his legs to sit a little more comfortably. "The Berserkers were me copying a drawing Asriel made of one of his favourite characters. I wanted to see if I could do something like it, too, but I needed a dragon for reference."

"And Headbanger?"

"She was one of the very first ones I really tried with. I'm not sure anymore what he said but - so it started when I heard Snowy and Jocks talk about Susie. And Jocks said something like 'if she was cool like me, maybe she'd make some friends'. So I drew a 'cool Susie'. Well, I never asked him how he imagined that, but that's what I thought of at the time. You've seen her yourself. Except, now she's nothing like on her drawing."

She chuckled. "Don't you think the star shades are a bit much?"

"That's not 'much'. There should be one called 'FRESH', she's 'much'."

What raised his spirits, was that she was still smiling by this point. She wasn't shocked or appalled. "But, a lot of them - they're not just Susie in a costume, are they?"

Now that he actually had someone to talk about this with, he didn't feel like stopping. "They're not supposed to be Susie - well - most of the time. I'm just using Susie as a reference." A smirk crept up her face, but he preferred to pretend to not notice like he did most of the time anyway. "That's why some of them are bigger, some are smaller, some have a big tail, some don't, at least one even has horns and wings."

He could hear a hint of insecurity in her voice. "But - with Susie - well, not Susie. I mean, the one we thought was Susie. Axe."

"That one's easy. After me and Berdly came back from the dark world - well, you know how we all look different here? He basically already knew about the Susies. So I wanted to show him what Susie looks like here. That's really it."

"No. I mean you and I only changed colours and clothes. You 'varied' with Axe, too, didn't you? Why?"

"No I didn't."

"She looks a bit different from Susie."

"She looks exactly the same."

"No, she was a bit taller. I think. A little bit. And her teeth and her ta- Wait. Did you even look at Susie when you drew Axe?"

He spent several seconds pouting at her in silence. "You know, Berdly asked me the same question."

Noelle was about to respond to that, when a series of shrill sounds shot their way, sent by an amplifier that Banger must have connected her guitar to by now.

While they were still on their way, talking this interruption as their cue to come back, they could hear her satisfied voice cheer herself on. "Aw yeah! I still got it." When they arrived, always fighting the urge to turn around to not walk straight through the remaining fumes blown their way, Dasher leaned away from her and back into his seat. Banger played a few more riffs until Kris and Noelle arrived back at the little circle around her. "Hey you."

She turned to him as soon as he sat down again and made her instrument give off another set of raggedy sounds, so loud from here, it gave Kris a bit of a headache. "You happy now? This 'sick' enough for you?"

He smiled. "Yes. Much better. So, did you make a decision?"

"Yeah, about that." She put down her guitar again to pay more attention to her visitors. "So say hypothetically, I came with you guys, and we tried to get the band back together, right? How would I beat Axe? I can't fight. I don't even have a weapon."

Dasher brought a hand to the underside of her head and held her by it. And she just let him. "Don't you worry about petty little things like that. We could pass by some of our armories on our way up, and even if your sisters plundered them all, there's still a city right above the castle. There's got to be a blacksmith there, somewhere."

"Weapons..." Noelle wasn't so sure about all of this just yet. "Are you...we don't actually have to get violent, do we?"

Ralsei leaned forward and tugged at her arm a bit to draw her attention, then gave her a reassuring smile. "These purple Susies are much more friendly than the people we met with Berdly. And we got through a city full of them anyway. I'm sure Kris will find some way to get past them." Neither of them was really sure how his confident expression could communicate itself through the obscuring glow that came from all parts of his face. It just did.

She couldn't help but chuckle. "You...you seem pretty confident in him."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Kris faced her, raised his head, and then raised an eyebrow. Yeah, why wouldn't he be?

"It's uh - I'm sorry. I'll explain later."

With newfound spirit, the retired rock star got up and swung her guitar over her back to carry it by a leather band attached to it. "So what're we waiting for. Let's get the band back together." They could only hope it would be that easy. And for a brief time, when their group of five walked out of the classroom together, it felt as if it was going to be, but this impression was quickly dispelled once they were in the school's central hall again.

Someone stood in the open doorframe, between the five of them and the only exit, with her arms folded, indicating little or no intention to let them through. "I was willing to look past the substance abuse, at least you weren't getting in anyone else's way."

It was another Susie. A bit shorter than Headbanger, but more thoroughly dressed. She wore a black nun's robe with a white collar hanging over her shoulders and the corresponding headpiece wrapped around a good portion of her hair. Around her neck hung an amulet with a golden cross. "But now you're fraternizing with the enemy as well?"

Aside from her tone, you could see her disapproval in the slightly off angle of her head. Whenever she spoke, neither between Kris and Noelle could help but notice that she was the only Susie they had met, who had shiny white teeth.

Banger ran a hand along the side of her snout. "Oh gosh, it's Mrs. Goody Two-Shoes again."

Noelle wasn't actually as shaken up about this as she used to be anymore. In fact, she was facing Kris and laughing. He only watched her shoulders rise and drop rather than to look anywhere near her eyes. "A nun? Really?"

He shrugged. "I didn't do anything at the time and Mom still took me to church every day for a week. I was angry, okay?"

The nun immediately snapped at him. "Then it is true!" She pointed straight at him. "Human, blue skin, dark blue hair, armor plates, you match the description. The Knight told us all about you. One of the perverted lightners that preside over this realm. The last one left, too. Responsible for all that exists in it, including all dragons. Including me. And this layabout. And much worse than that, those two!"

They heard the steps of two much bigger dragons enter. They were heavy enough, that they could feel them. The two that passed by the nun were taller than her, taller than Headbanger, in fact, they were probably quite a bit taller than Susie would have been if she were a fully grown adult. Partly, because they WERE Susie as a grown adult. They had a grotesque, overtly womanly hourglass figure, and were dressed not to conceal, but to flaunt it.

They were wearing the same fishnet stockings and high heels from before. But they had ditched their top and replaced the rest of their clothing with a one-piece bikini that consisted of nothing more than two, two-inch-wide straps wrapped around their whole bodies, covering up nothing except maybe the very bare minimum on their otherwise bare chest and which converged around the underside of their hips and the back of their necks.

Their hair was more voluminous than that of any of the other Susies present and left nothing of their eyes to be seen. Not that one would notice, as Kris couldn't help but stare at the bare teeth in their widely grinning jaws. Of all the Susies, Faith, the nun charged with keeping them prisoner, brought Mistresses to back her up.

One of them raised and straightened a bit of her whip, to show off that she had one. As did the other Mistress. "But fine then." she continued. "When those mindless wretches left to jail you, heard the gunshots and came to report them to me instead of checking on the prison themselves, I made my peace with having to take matters into my own hands. If you created these abominations, then surely you aren't opposed to being left alone with them."

Her two subordinates made way for her to leave. "Mistresses, they're all yours. So long as they stay alive and don't escape, you're free to do with them as you please. I will guard the gate, just so that in the event of your failure, I am in position to stop them myself."

"With pleasure." The grinning Mistress' voice was a lot clearer and had less of a grumble to it than that of the others. The nun made her laugh, but being faced with not only Susie as two mature women, but both dressed as a dominatrix, too, left Noelle at a loss for words.

The other of the two spoke up. Kris wasn't sure if he was comfortable with what her voice was doing to him. "Now then, boys. We have some handcuffs and bedposts with your names on them. You can come with us nicely..." After beckoning them to come closer by waving one finger, she swung her arm around to stretch it out, which left her whip spread out on the floor to her side as well. "...or we put you in your place."

"Put-put me in my..." Noelle was just trembling, moreso than the rest of her, her lips were. She had her arms folded together and her eyes were shot wide open.

Kris faced Dasher. The archer had pulled his hat forward to cover his face, but couldn't keep pretending he wasn't paid attention to for long. "Didn't you say you're the charmer to the dames?"

Once he couldn't silently step away, he just shrugged. "Does either of those look like a dame to you?"

Great, so Dasher wasn't helping either. Luckily, the Mistresses were silently waiting for Kris and the others to make their first move, just to be sure what their choice was. He grabbed Noelle by the arm to get her to stop flipping out and gnawing at the tips of her fingers. "Now is a good time for you summon your weapon. I need your help."

"Weapon?"

He was understanding when she was still shaken up by being in the dark world and then Gobbler almost eating her, but it was about time for her to start helping. "Susie was able to summon an axe. Berdly had two pistols. I..." He raised his sword.

She only twitched together and inched further away from him. "I...I don't know...I can't..."

Oh great, the only grown man refused to seduce them, Headbanger had no weapon, Noelle probably had one but was too scared to make it appear, yet again, the only one he could count on, was Ralsei. Which was the next person he turned to. "Can you try - could you try and flirt with them?"

"Me? I mean, I can try." He closed his eyes and cleared his throat before raising his voice. "Oh you graceful beauties who stand before me! The way your majestic hair waves to all who gaze upon it in the wind, sends my heart aflu- I'm sorry, Kris. I can't do this. Their hair isn't even blue, so I can't use waterfall-hair line."

Well, at least he tried. They didn't look impressed or seem like the kind of people this would appeal to anyway. But their theme definitely leaned in the flirty direction. Maybe it would improve their situation, if Kris just tried something more straightforward and aggressive. Even if he had little idea how to go about this.

He just had to give them a quick look and say what came to mind. They flaunted their bodies like Berserkers, but unlike them, 'well-fed' described the form of their limbs and shoulders more aptly than 'muscular' would have. He just had to hope for the best. Flirting improved their situation in fights in the card kingdom, it did with that one Grunt, it would do it again.

He tensed up his hand not occupied with holding his sword, took a confident step forward towards their opponents, and when the hearts shot their way, he said: "I like your thighs!" Someone behind him whinged, but he couldn't make out who. He was more distracted by the fact that a snare of black leather shot out of the ground and slid past the metal glove of the hand he was pointing at the Mistresses and onto his wrist.

And from one moment to the next, one of the smiling Mistresses was pulling him closer by it. His heart sunk upon realizing the mistake he had made. This didn't improve his situation. "It made it worse! It made it worse! Help!" He fought against it, but she was pulling with more force than he could muster to pull away.

Of course if they were darkners, they had magic attacks, and of course, seeing as what the Mistresses were, their magic attacks were thin straps of black leather. Just like their clothes. Oh god, what if they weren't actually wearing any clothes and the straps that left nothing to the imagination were actually also just magic attacks? What was he thinking when he made the drawing they came from? He didn't even remember. He mostly buried them under the rest.

No, that wasn't true, he thought it was funny. It was a joke to him. What was Noelle thinking about this now that the 'joke' was right before her? Hard to tell. "What - what are- what are - " Between the mumbling, she was actually gladly not paying much attention to him.

Dasher finally grabbed his bow and picked an arrow out of his quiver. But before he could pull it against the string, another leather snare shot out of the ground beneath him, pulled his arrow down and then straight to the hand of the dragoness that summoned it, followed by more looped straps shooting out and winding themselves around both the archer's arms. He was being pulled now, too.

When the same began to happen to Ralsei, Kris swung his sword and began cutting off all the snares with clean cuts. But it was no use. The Mistresses immediately summoned new ones and had him, Ralsei and Dasher in their grasp all over again. They were all being pulled towards them, and the trembling doe on his other side, lost in her mumbles and uncomfortable scratches between teeth and lips, while not tied by the wrists like the others, was wandering to their imminent captors on her own volition.

He had to come up with a way out of this, and fast. Otherwise, carving his way through them would have become the only option. What worked on them? They were not Grunts, flirting wouldn't fluster them. Especially not the kinds of lines his mind came up with at a time like this. They were not Berserkers, as while they showed off their bodies too, the Mistresses' intent behind that was clearly of a more sexual nature.

He stared at their shameless, grinning jaws, their revealing clothing. Something there had to be the solution. Then it occurred to him. Something Ralsei said, sweating and blushing as he did so, flashed up as an image in his mind. Of course. Their intent was of a more sexual nature. Without noticing he did until after the fact, he stammered it out aloud. "If you want to hit me, that's okay too."

Understandably horrified gasps came from everyone, even Noelle snapped out of her feverish trance for a second. Ralsei needed a moment to realize he was being quoted, his eyes widened and he began to blush and check if anyone but Kris was looking at him when he did. They were dominatrices, so they were all about domination and inflicting pain. Pain was the answer. Actually, why keep that to himself? "Pain is the answer! They like pain."

He knew they didn't really understand. He had to take the initiative and demonstrate to them what he meant. While still fighting on against the dragon woman's hands pulling him closer, he dispelled his sword and summoned his shield instead. He diverted some of his strength away from resisting his approach to the Mistress and to pulling off to the side. While he came closer, he grabbed his shield by its edge with both hands.

When he really was in her reach, and she held his leashes only with one hand, he pulled and ducked down under her grasp and rushed past her. With all his strength, he swung the blunt side of his shield against the Mistress' imposing rear. The force rippled along her scales and she was startled by it. A faint shriek escaped her in reaction to it, but she didn't look angered or upset.

Once she grasped what he had done, she began to smile again and cooed. "Oh, not so rough." The way she said that made his armor feel uncomfortably tight and he backed off from her. "Did I say to stop?" Looking up from right below and seeing those fierce bright yellow eyes for the first time didn't do much to calm him down. He also noticed he had drawn out enough of the other Mistress' curiosity for her to stop pulling the others closer.

He just had to brave through it and keep going. He slammed the blunt side of his shield against her again. And she just let him.

After that, Ralsei was the first to realize that it was working. The Mistresses were just either letting it happen, or watching it happen, so he followed Kris' lead. He enchanted his scarf to make its front end more solid, and snuck around the other grown Susie, still watching what Kris was doing with the other one. Then he spun to the side and back and spanked her with his scarf, the same was Kris was with his shield.

The more they spanked the dragons, the less solid their stances became and the less they actually held onto the straps they held the heroes by.

Eventually, Dasher joined in as well by ripping the whip out of the loose grip of the Mistress on Ralsei's side and pushed the prince aside to get him to join Kris on the other one. He quickly stepped back to have enough of a distance to swing his arm and strike the mistress with her own whip. Which prompted a shriek quite a bit louder than all the ones Kris and Ralsei got out of them.

Not only were their opponents not fighting back against their weirdly uncomfortable attacks, they were turning their backs on them and getting all fours to give the three of them better angle. Noelle had stopped closing in on the Mistresses. She could only gaze in horror at what was transpiring before her.

Even Headbanger was afraid.

While they both stood side by side with their jaws dropped, for the first time since they met her, the former rock star took off her glasses, because she didn't believe what she was seeing through them. Strike after strike, the Mistresses followed each attack with quaking motions with their bodies to overdramatize the impact they made on them. The literal torture of those two grown Susie-look-alikes went on and on.

They didn't think to stop until Kris and Ralsei's lost balance and collapsed on the floor for a second. When she did though, the prince rushed forward, held his hand in front of her face, and cast a spell. Before she knew what was happening, she collapsed once more and fell asleep. The other Mistress, now covered in the visible bruises and wounds from a long, merciless whipping, could barely keep herself on her knees, let alone put up a fight when he rushed to her and pacified her as well.

For almost half a minute, everyone stood completely still just to be absolutely sure that the Mistresses weren't getting back up. Kris, slightly ducked throughout their time waiting, finally signaled everyone to relax by standing upright. "Let's go." He immediately instructed Dasher to guide them to the top of the castle, where apparently the only exit was located.

He spoke much faster after they were done with the Mistresses. Louder, and more clearly. And he was a bit snippish in doing so. Noelle could only guess why his visibly tense lips never relaxed ever since they left this replica of their school. When they were back in the safety between the narrow, solid stone walls of another servants' staircase, she twitched him by some of the black fabric not covered in armor. "So, uhm. Kris. What was that, back there? In the school?"

"A mistake. Maybe." He showed little regard and went right on to stop and face Ralsei. "Which pacify spell did you use, the short one or the long one?"

"The long one."

"Phew, good. Otherwise, they'd becoming back for more soon." The thought conjured up all the wrong feelings in both him and Noelle. She figured that his change in demeanour and the way he mistook what she asked him, meant that he didn't want to talk about what she was really referring to.

The truth was that he was terrified. Terrified of what conclusions she would draw, having seen what she had just seen. He knew that turning back time did help to dodge some attacks, but those Mistresses weren't static. They were going to run into them no matter what. Whatever he did, Noelle would come out of this, having seen them and there was nothing he could do about that.

What would she say to others about it? Would she talk about it? He tried not to think about it, but her drawing his attention back to it didn't help with this in the slightest. Every time she drew his attention, he was at a loss for words when it came to the Susies. He wanted a way to talk about the Mistresses, but he couldn't think of one. All he could do, was distract himself and focus on what was ahead.


	18. The One Who Bears Fangs At God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Headbanger, their party is complete. Now they just have to use what they accrued to get out of the castle.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 06

The One Who Bears Fangs at God

* * *

For another trek through the servants' quarters, always at the heart of Noelle's and Ralsei's attention, Kris went back and forth between pragmatic and commandeering on one hand, and completely silent on the other. Even though there was little reason to be, they were all relieved when eventually, the archer guiding them broke this routine. "So, everyone." He stopped at the corridor atop another staircase, in front of a wooden door.

"The safe paths end here. Anything beyond this door and above, are the court halls. There are neither noble quarters nor servants' quarters. No far-off narrow stairways anymore. Only this." Slowly and carefully, always peeking ahead a little bit more as he did so, he opened the door and eventually revealed it to everyone else. Ahead lay a hallway a bit wider than the one they met the Berserkers in.

And there were no stairs leading to the main portion of it. Instead, the entire hall was uneven. The floor was flat, covered in several feet wide tiles, but all in a mildly steep fashion, with their group of five at the bottom. Instead of closed doors, the walls were lined with open doorframes that led into banquet halls. And between them, the paintings were different. Different paintings were mixed between what Kris already figured were enlarged tarot card designs.

But now, different objects and symbols were included. Going by how one featured spades and another hearts, even he could tell that the paintings here seemed to branch out to include all kinds of playing cards. "What follows from here, is merely a maze of halls such as this one. I'm afraid we can't rely on the safety of narrow spaces any longer."

At first, only Dasher, Kris and Ralsei peeked out. Then the shorter two of the three were pushed aside by their new reptilian follower. "Stop getting hung up, there's either someone there or there isn't." Sick of the constricting parts of the castle they dragged her through, Headbanger couldn't wait to squeeze her way out of the door and relax. Her sloppy, unfitting shoes cast an easily audible echo throughout the hall.

Kris showed little of a reaction on the outside, but on the inside, enough for it to probably show enough for Noelle to tell, he was upset to no end at how clumsy Headbanger was. He knew Noelle knew, because reading his expression caused her to chuckle. Not that that mattered, Banger had made enough noise. All he could hope for, was that they were lucky and that no-one was here.

What was he going to do? Shove away and tell the big dragon to shut up and be patient? She was a lot more friendly, but also over a head taller than him.

But his worry nonetheless proved well-founded. As they could hear steps that were neither Headbanger's, nor that of anyone else among their party. Slow, unsure steps, but steps nonetheless, and they were coming their way. Scratching an open spot on her legs beneath one of the many holes in her jeans with one hand, and holding a glass jar in the other, a Grunt wandered through a doorframe to their side, into their sight.

Her lower mouth was dripping with a bright beige, thick liquid, that shared its colour with the contents of the jar. "Hey!" She must have been drinking from it, and by the looks of the now very agitated archer pointing at her, to a fault. "That's my eggnog!" The purple dragon froze, then pointed at her drink. "Yes!" Dasher responded. "It's my favourite. It's got to be one of Temptress' last jars, and she's just binge drinking it."

This time, for lack of an option not to, Kris took the initiative and pulled Dasher back by his wrist. "Wait!" He pointed at the Susie lookalike and to his relief, she moved as little now as she did before. "Wait." He had to come up with something. She was going to notify the other Susies if he didn't come up with a solution. Or just attack them. He had to come up with something, and fast.

But what could he do? The very first thing he could think of, was, in spite of how absurd that was, flirting. Trying to recreate what worked with that first Grunt they ran into. But he knew there were more than the one, he couldn't use the same line on all of them. All he could do, was stay still and stall for time that way. He had no experience dating anyone let along flirting with anyone. How was he supposed to know what she wanted to hear?

Then he had an idea. When he tried to get the real Susie to flirt with some of the darkners in the Card Kingdom, she had some really weird pick-up lines, but he could chalk that up to Ralsei telling her to say things she wished someone told her. So without further thinking about it, he made his suiting gesture, shot hearts her way and announced: "You are unbanned from free ham sandwich day!"

Ralsei wasn't surprised by his choice of words, and Headbanger expected something bizarre like this, just going by the first impression she got from him. But Noelle and Dasher were confused, and a bit embarrassed. The Grunt gave little signs of reacting either way, apart from backing off by half a step. She was as surprised as the other uninitated were. But after a moment of being startled, she stuttered out a response. "Uh okay. Thanks...I guess? What is ham sandwich day?"

On second thought, this may have been a mistake, but Kris had gone this far, he had to commit to it. "A day where everyone who shows up gets free ham sandwiches. And you're invited."

"Awesome...maybe?" She really liked the idea, but the circumstances under which this conversation was happening really stunted it on both sides.

"But there are some conditions. You let us pass, you stop drinking that stuff and you don't tell the others you saw us. Okay?"

Still confused and a little scared, the dragon backed off and retreated to where she came from. "Sure. Can't stop the others from trying to get you though."

"That's okay."

When he was just about to relax after seeing her vanish, she peeked back into the hall. "But when that ham sandwich thing happens, you'll tell me, right? I'll be right here. Probably."

"Sure." When she retreated after that, he paused for a moment to see if she would come back, but she didn't. He inhaled, sighed and let his shoulders drop. Phew. Now he knew that there still was a multitude of purple dragons between them and the exit, but at least they had gotten past the first one. The ham sandwich day line was a success. She must have been really hungry for that to work.

Their break didn't last for long, the noise seemed to stir another Grunt from behind another doorframe on the other side. "What's going o- lightners. Girls! Hey you!" She turned around to where she came from and called for another one to follow her. "The lightners are here!" She didn't give her friend the time to get up and follow her though, and went right up to Kris and the others. "Stop right there." She seemed unsure as to how to approach them, but she did so anyway. "You there." She pointed at headbanger, who wasn't fazed by being singled out. "Back me up here. We're supposed to beat up these guys and lock them up."

Banger just grinned and put her hands together behind her head. "Nope. I'm with these guys now."

"Seriously? You let them talk you into switching sides this easily?"

Before this could get any further out of control, K repeated his usual gesture and directed his finger at their new enemy. "Your outfit is NOT disgusting!" He told the more confrontational dragon.

Their enemy was surprised and confused enough to the to take a step back and throw up her elbow in a defensive manner. "What the hell? What was that all about?"

Rockstar Susie stepped forward a little further. "I think that's his way of saying he doesn't want to fight you."

"What? I mean sure, I don't want to either, but what if Axe shows up? Nevermind Axe. What if Faith loses it for good and wants to make an example out of me? She's been bringing up weird words like 'wheelweaving' and 'scaphism' and I'm pretty sure she's talking about killing people in some way."

While they were talking, Noelle asked Kris with a lowered voice: "Who's Faith?"

"The nun."

"Trust me, these guys are weird, I get that, but I think they're for real. We're gonna beat Axe and bring the good old days back. How fun is hanging out in a boring castle like this if we could be partying hard like before?"

"I'll believe that you'll beat Axe when I see you get past Faith."

"Can't see if that'll happen if you won't let us pass."

"Good point."

Kris began to lose his patience, summoned his sword and took on a battle stance. "So are you going to let us pass or not?"

Apparently this startled the Grunt enough to throw up her hands, take up a defensive position and move back to the hall she had come from. "Dude, calm down. Yeah, I'm not stopping you. It's not me she'll make an example of anyway. If it's anyone, it's gonna be her." He started to understand that contrary to his expectation, the Grunts weren't as much violent as they were lazy and hungry.

Even with the first two or three navigated past, they still had a long way up. At the other end of the hall, the outer edge of the castle just had a tall staircase that led to another uneven hall for them to walk up in the opposite direction. And all along the way, they ran into more Grunts.

Noelle had to witness time after time, Kris pointing and shooting hearts towards creatures that looked and sounded exactly like Susie, and blurting out pick-up lines so bizarre, half the time they didn't sound like pick-up lines at all. At first, Ralsei could reassure her that there was some logic to it, as all he did, was reuse lines they heard from Susie when they tried to get her to flirt with darkners in the Card Kingdom.

But he couldn't keep that going forever, so he just wound up making up new ones as he went along.

And she wasn't sure whether she liked the new, less obscure undertone they came with. Lines like "Don't stop tackling the vending machine!" made way for him telling them things like "I want us to watch a movie together!", "You look inspiring.", "I would love to watch the autumn sun go down in your arms!" and even "You are the reason I get up. The only reason to keep going for me, is to see you again. You give my life meaning. Whenever I look at you, I feel like there is a purpose to life after all."

After sparing a Grunt with that last line, the prince picked up on Noelle's nervousness enough to tug at Kris' arm. "I'm sorry, I think you're making her a bit uncomfortable. And honestly, me too. It was different in the Card Kingdom, because of the player and everything, but I don't really like you talking to strangers like this."

'Talking to strangers like this' what was he hearing? Kris grinned. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were my Mom."

The prince blushed a little and laughed along with him. "I apologize if it rained a bit on your parade."

No, Ralsei was right. Kris was enjoying this way too much. Everything he threw at the Grunts worked somehow. They were all either flustered, or weirded out enough leave them alone. Which it was, he didn't care. He couldn't keep any of these drawings a secret from her any more, that ship had long sailed, so at this point, there was nothing restraining him any more.

What happened in the dark world, stayed in the dark world. He could tell the Grunts anything he liked. "Look." He passed Ralsei to get closer to Noelle. "If you wanted to be included, you just had to say something." On the very next encounter with two Grunts, he summoned his sword purely for aesthetic purposes, swung his other arm to point at the enemy and shouted. "Noelle! Flirt with them."

"What?" More and more upon hearing this, the scared doe pulled together and retreated deeper and deeper into her christmas robe. "What?"

Kris turned to her, went as far as to pull his hair away to try to give her a reassuring look and smiled. "Just say anything you like. Anything works. Look!" He stepped forward and pointed at one of them. "You!" The Susie to the left carefully pointed at herself. "Yes you! You're a murderer." Both their enemies looked confused. With an overly wide grin, he slowly raised two finger guns her way. "'Cause that outfit is really killing it."

The reactions from behind him were understandably disappointed, but he didn't care. What mattered was how his target reacted. The dragon he was speaking to, stammered out attempts at coming up with a response, but she just wound up announcing her departure and left. With one of the two gone, he turned to Noelle again. "See? Anything you say works. Just try."

All of a sudden, Noelle had second thoughts. His encouragement only intimidated her into burying more of her face in her robe. "I - uhm - I don't know."

Then he just spelled it out. "What happens in the dark world, stays in the dark world. Nothing you can say is too embarrassing. Just try."

"I'll...I'll try. You!" She had to take a deep breath to muster the courage, even with everyone being extra patient with her. She blurted it out with her eyes closed. "You're a hot piece!" And even afterwards, she pulled right back into her robe until only the eyes and antlers were looking out. "What..." She didn't say anything else, until she noticed Kris being upset with her. "What's wrong?"

"If you're going to be THIS straightforward, why not actually commit to it?" She didn't even answer. But even he could figure, that she wasn't really sure, what he meant. "Okay, look. Hey, Grunt!" He drew their previously unimpressed opponent's attention. Again, smiling, he raised both his hands, one stretched out, both fingers pointing her way. "That's a hot piece of ass you got there."

"What?"

This was enough to coax the doe out of hiding. "Kris, what has gotten into you?"

Now she was upset with him? Why? He was trying to help here. He just threw his arms up, knowing she would understand the gesture. "Isn't this the exact thing you were trying to say?"

"No I - I don't know what I was - you're normally nothing like this. What is going on with you?"

"I just told you. What happens in the dark world, sta - look, I'm sorry. What is it you want me to do?"

Noelle, blushing to no end over all this, just covered her face in her hands for a while and sighed. When she took her hands away, she was smiling. "I'm not mad at you. That's not it. I just never saw you - this dark world - the Susies - this is really bringing you out of your shell somehow. I've never seen you like this before."

He shrugged. What was he even supposed to say to that? Nevertheless, this was enough excitement for Noelle, and by the time they had any attention to spare for the Grunt they used those lines on, she was already gone.

So she left the rest of the 'flirting their way past all the Grunts' part to Kris. He asked Dasher if he didn't want to give it a try, but he insisted they weren't anything you could describe as a lady or a dame.

After a few more of those halls, at last, they got to a part of the castle where the floor wasn't a slope any more. Instead, the hall they got to was wider, and the ceiling reached much further up. It was decorated in an exorbitant way, with lines of gold formed to make up serpents and other figures, molded onto the top and bottom of every wall, and the sides of all the railings along the staircase that led along several floors, all of which were included in this one hall.

And that was not even mentioning the formerly well-decorated tables, with shiny silverware strewn across the folded white tablecloths. "We're almost there." To the left and right, apparently, there were more dining halls similar to this one. And at the very top, it extended itself quiet a lot further forward, all the way to a tall and wide wooden gate.

And just as expected, when they approached it, from one of the identical halls to the side, came a familiar face. Faith. Light world Susie, dressed up as a nun. She bore her teeth at them, swung her arm to the side, and in position for her to wrap her arm over her weapon. An enormous book with heavy metal reinforcing its cover on both sides - presumably, a bible. "This far and not any further, lightners."

With her bible in hand, once she was sure that they weren't just going to run for it, she walked further to the side to place herself exactly between the heroes and the exit. "I will deal with you myself, your punishment will be severe!"

Noelle froze in motion, but continued to tremble as she did. "Pu - What punishment?"

"You will be flogged two-hundred times, all of you! I found an entire wall covered in floggers and scourges! One more painful than the next. I will have plenty a choice for tools."

"Don't touch those, they belong to a friend of mine!" This was when at last, Dasher saw fit to step into the limelight. He smiled and moved past Kris and the others. "Regardless of that, my, my. Aren't we having a bit of an attitude here? Me and my friends don't have to put up with this. Getting judged like this by just any peasant frow that comes our way. Who do you think you are?"

"None are to be spared judgment before the lord! Lightners are no exception and neither are you, you coward." With a key pulled from a white band wound around her black robe, the nun opened the bible's lock and opened it up on a specific page. Once there, she held her hand over it with her palm pointing down at the page. A circular light shone from on the page and through it, a bishop's staff glided up into the air and into her hand. She placed the book on the floor and grabbed the cane.

"Coward? Bold words for a literal, fire-breathing dragon, armed with knowledge and weaponry, and who yet won't fight us on the spot before making us go through countless unarmed dragons. That isn't mentioning the effigies of pure, unadulterated sin you had no qualms directing our way."

"I've no need to justify myself before a coward."

"And I've no need to be judged by one." The archer, never ceasing to grin, took off his bow and placed it on the floor. From a sheath tied to his belt, he pulled a fencing foil. "If a fight is unavoidable, I will waste no arrows on you. And you will yet not strike me."

With one hand, he grabbed his tricorne by the side, and tossed it to have it spin into Noelle's arms. Without leaving time for him to go on any further, the nun already charged for him with her staff raised. In a visibly calculated fashion, the archer stepped aside just in time for her to miss him and before she could react by striking sideways, he lunged forward and in a swing too fast to follow, cut the sleeve of the dragon's robe open.

Startling her enough to nigh jump backwards. "What?" Dasher didn't respond. He just kept a close eye on all of Faith's movements, while never dropping his smug expression even as time went on. "Just wait, sinner!" She tried the exact same thing again. A vertical swipe with her bishop's staff, and again, he dodged it with ease. Followed by him cutting through the fabric along her upper arm. "The nerve!"

After this, she adjusted herself to grab her staff from further down, charged the backing-off human's way and put the strength of both her arms into an overhead smash strong enough for the staff's tip to crack the stone floor beneath where Dasher had just stood a second ago.

After he dodged and stepped back though, this time, his attack on the dragon left Faith flinching and grabbing her shoulder at the spot where he cut her. He must have cut more than just her clothing this time, and when she took her hand off of her shoulder, there was indeed blood on it. "You dare! Curse you! Why are you so silent anyway?"

He didn't do so until he was several steps away from her. "Maybe if you stopped talking and concentrated, you might actually hit me for a change."

She didn't listen to him. "Stop moving!" She just kept trying over and over. "Hold still, try measuring your strength against mine, weakling!" She struck for him with her staff time and time again, and time and time again, he dodged every single attack. The harder she tried to hit him, the deeper a wound he cut on her right afterwards.

And as time went on, her movements slowed down. Wounds and fatigue were wearing down on her and everyone noticed. Even Faith herself did. "By the angel!", she bellowed under heavy breaths, bleeding from several wounds on arms and back. Trembling under every breath. "How can one who strays so far from god, not fall to his vices?"

He made sure to get to a safe distance before he answered. He could, now that Faith was struggling to even stand. "That's rich, coming from someone who serves the Knight."

"Your 'Heroes' are not pure! They're deviants! They could never be true opposition to the dark forces at work."

"So because they aren't pure enough for you, we should all lay down our weapons and let someone even worse than them reign supreme?" Dasher wasn't smiling any more. "You can mislead Temptress like this, but that won't work on me."

After taking some time to recover, the nun bore her teeth at him again. "What would you know? You aren't pure either."

With newfound vigor in his voice, the archer taunted her. "If the path of 'god', the 'pure' path, is to serve Temptress and the Knight, perhaps your god is a false one, and his path is the path to damnation."

"How dare you?" She was angry. Angry and wounded enough to be in tears. Angry, but not in a condition to fight, and yet she tried anyway.

Once more, she raised her staff, pushed herself to run his way, and strike at the floor beside him. While she did, this time, Dasher did things a little differently. He dodged the attack in the opposite direction. When her grip on her staff loosened a bit, he seized the moment to forcible push it out of her hands for it to fall on the ground, and pressed the base of his blade, still essentially a sword albeit a very thin one, against her neck.

In her surprise, a gust of fire escaped her mouth and she tried to direct it onto him, but he wouldn't let her lower her head enough to do that, without pressing her neck and lower head straight into the blade. Then he restrained one of her arms with his free hand, and forced her to lie down on her back.

When he was sure he could, he placed one of his boots on her stomach to hold her down, grabbed the golden cross hanging off Faith's neck and ripped it off. "Admit defeat. And excuse me if I take a trophy." Something about their conversation was getting under his skin, but with a prize for his victory, a mischievous grin crept up his face. "Perhaps I can smelt this and turn it into something of value."

Kris came closer, with a face devoid of expression and simply told him: "Stop."

To say that Dasher looked troubled, would have been an understatement. But he eventually readjusted, placed the other arm at the dragon's neck to keep her pinned down, and rammed his foil into the ground, piercing straight through her side. "This is for Temptress." It was only after getting fully stabbed like this, that she finally gave in to the wounds and stopped struggling.

While he got up, the prince rushed closer to pacify her. And after the archer, albeit begrudgingly so, pulled his weapon back out of his opponent, the prince proceeded to heal some of Faith's wounds.

"What is it with you and Temptress anyway?"

From the way he sighed when he heard Kris ask this, the archer didn't like how to the point he was being. "Some of us are closer friends than others. Temptress was from our closer circle of friends. Seeing her turn on us like this hurt." He didn't say more than that, he just ventured forward up the linear staircase, up to the doors that led outside.

With Banger left to be the only conscious Susie present, Noelle came along to give Dasher his hat back. "Kris, I don't think he wants to talk about it." If she said so, it was probably true. Even though to him, it seemed like this was important.

The rings for handles the doors atop the stairs had, were heavy. Everyone helped grabbing and pulling the open. And even once it was open, when they left, they left right onto the flat stone ramparts of a flat rooftop, within a dark cavern. Diagonal tunnels led to more sets of entrances to the castle, spread all around these ramparts.

But rather than just ending at its outer edges, the roof led straight onto a busy square outside of the cave. Along the stone reinforcements on the outer edge of the roof, a barbed wire fence was erected. There was broad gate leading to the city, but it was closed and guarded by two strange creatures with plastic helmets and sunglasses.

One was a man made of cylindrical pieces of wood. The other was a person made of grey metal, and a ridiculously large portion of his whole body consisted only of his pressed-together legs, which were thinner and thinner towards his tiny feet. "Freeze!" More of them came out of a nearby booth next to the gate, opened it, and came closer to the party.

A glance off to the side revealed why. There was a sign next to the gate. Drawn on it, was a simplified sketch of a monster face with a round, purple snout and most of its eyes covered in brown hair. It was encased in a red circle, and an equally red line crossed out the Susie face diagonally. A very clear 'No Susies allowed' sign.

Everyone who came their way through the gate, came either with a sword or a crossbow. "Hands where I can see 'em."

They were here to stop Headbanger from entering. "She's nice, she didn't do anything."

"I said hands where I can see 'em." After a more stern reminder, they all carefully raised their hands. One of the wooden people came up to Headbanger and urged Kris and the others to give him a little space. He gestured for her to give him her guitar, which she did. Once he had it in his hand, he turned it around a bit and inspected it more closely before handing it back to her. "False alarm, it's just an instrument."

"An instrument of DEATH?" one of the other officers asked.

The one originally checking slapped the back of his helmet. "A music instrument. Now. Can I see ya without those glasses?"

She followed suit and removed the shades, and after a mere five seconds of the wooden man looking her in the eye, he backed off again. "Seems fine, clear!" As soon as he went back to the gate, the other security made way for the party and pulled the gate open all the way for them to walk through.

This was all strange, to say the least. The square was entirely made of stone, not concrete. As were all the buildings. The monsters passing through here and there were wearing simple, hand-sown clothes and short trousers, there were no elecric street lights and the vehicles that passed through were old-fashioned chariots, more befitting somewhere in the renaissance than anything about this fence and the people that guarded it. While they all awkwardly passed through, Kris couldn't help but stop and ask one of the metal men: "Why does a city like this have border controls?"

"Perhaps I can answer any questions such as this one." Behind him, having just arrived with a chariot while they passed the fence, another person came their way. He looked different from both kinds of people that guarded the fence. He was a monster, seemingly, but not really.

His face was that of a goat, but he wasn't a boss monster. He had the face of a regular, feral goat, with the exception of his horns being perfectly straight cones pointing diagonally to his upper left and right and his ears unlike the floppy, straight-downwards ears of a boss monster, hanging slightly down to his left and right.

He wore a shiny, bright red uniform with golden buttons and a green handkerchief looking out of a pocket on the right of his jacket as well as a hat that matched his uniform. His chariot was unusually large, almost like a fully sized, modern recreation vehicle except shorter and taller, due to it still being an old-fashioned chariot, with another goat man holding the reins of the horses strapped in to pull it.

"To answer this question right now, the Journeyman had this fence built after a bloodthirsty succubus drove away all the others for us and warned us of more dragons attacking if we didn't keep them out."

Kris figured that the enormous J that was built onto the side of the chariot and was big enough to cover as much of its side as was possible, stood for 'Journeyman'. What he was less sure about was: "So what's a succubus?"

The stranger pointed at Headbanger. "Why, dragons like your friend right there of course. Come." He went back to his chariot, up a small set of extended stairs and held the door in the lower half of the 'J' open. "I'll explain everything else on the way."

Kris was a little hesitant at first, but after he went ahead, followed this person and took a peek at the inside of the chariot, he waved for the others to follow. There really only was this one man and the one handling the horses. The inside was really comfortable. Every inch of its interior was put to use.

There were beds that were soft enough to double as couches all along both sides, exempting what little room the door encompassed, and accessible through a ladder-like set of stairs, there were two more rows of couch-beds up above. Headbanger couldn't wait to climb up to lie on her stomach on one of the upper ones, leaning her head on her elbow to lazily follow what happened below.

Dasher took the other side up above, leaving Kris, Noelle and Ralsei below with their host. "First of all, greetings." He shook everyone's hand. "I'm a page, I work at the Journeyman's tower."

"I'm guessing that's where we're going?"

"Precisely. Please, make yourselves comfortable." Opposite from the entrance door, there was a window, which he sat in front of. He shuffled to the side and pulled the curtains open to reveal the grey streets of a stone city. With monsters of all kinds walking along the stone bricks that made up its pavement.

"Welcome to Bedrock. The city beneath the mountain. Heart of the Kingdom of Taint. Anything a visitor could need, food, shelter, arms, potions, protection from succubi, you will find it here."

He had to stop the page right there, and raised his open palm to do so. "Yes, the succubi. Did you just say a bloodthirsty dragon drove all the others away?"

"Oh right. That was right after we first came here earlier today. They were roaming and causing mayhem all over. Before we knew what was happening, they had occupied Fortune's Keep and driven the last of us out of it. If it weren't for another dragon doing the same with her fellow dragons here, we wouldn't have had anywhere to go in this kingdom."

"What did she look like?"

"She was armed. Short sword and a shield, armor. But we weren't quite sure what was going on at first, because other than the armor, she looked just like the other succubi."

"A knight?" Noelle was a bit quick to jump to conclusions.

"No." Dasher, having made himself as comfortable as Banger, stared down at the shaken-up doe. "The Knight was a lot of things, but he was certainly a him and he certainly wasn't a dragon, at least his helmet looked nothing like he was one. This is someone else."

After that, the page continued. "Oh, and she was mad, really mad. Apparently she had unfinished business with someone called 'Beauty'. She couldn't go one minute without talking about wanting to kill this 'Beauty' person. So she told us she can't protect us forever since she was heading off to the Kingdom of Heaven, and that unless we do something about it, the other succubi are going to overrun the city all over again. So we took her advice and put up a border fence to keep them out."

Kris gestured towards headbanger with his open hand. "Not much of a border fence if you just let her in."

The page scratched his head. "Yeah, we agreed to handle it a bit on a case by case basis. And she came along with you guys and you guys seem fine enough. You've got to understand. Security must have mistaken her guitar for an axe or something, so they were extra careful at first."

"And the Journeyman? Who is he?"

"Oh, he's a travelling merchant and a jack of all trades, he's pretty quick to take over any place he gets to. Not barring this place either. This city doesn't have an elder or a mayor or something, so if you want work, he'll be the best address. And if you made it out of Fortune's Keep in one piece, you must have slain a lot of dragons to get here, so he'll want to talk to you. A dragonslayer is the best thing short of actual lightners to help us."

"Actually...that...we're that as well."

The goat's eyes widened with enthusiasm. "Really?" Kris pointed at himself and Noelle. "This is even better! I am confident that you will sort this out. We're almost there anyways. And there we are!" They stopped at a crossing between roads. They could see their destination from inside through the window. It was a tower that reached almost as far as this inconceivably enormous cave did.

At the very top, it was adorned with a giant golden 'J', and below, neon signs lined its front. They depicted a simplified cartoon image of a widely grinning, human face, the kind of human face you would see in newspapers a lot, usually accompanied with a headline that screamed of tremendous offense being taken on the part of the author. The face came with a moving neon sign of a hand pointing towards the face with its thumb, and below, the words 'All around the world, Baby!'.

"All around the world?"

The page was a bit embarrassed at this slogan being brought up and tried to laugh off his embarrassment. "The Journeyman prides himself with his eagerness to travel around every realm he visits, so he likes to advertise that he's traveled around he world."

Behind the golden doors at the base of the tower, were more people in uniforms like those of the page and the coachman. Some were goats like him, some were those metal men with long arms and short legs, some were golden women with extravagantly wide, golden skirts and some, made of wooden rods like one of the ones at the fence. The page led them to an elevator, covered in gold like the front door.

"Ahem." Dasher was generally a little slow in coming into the tower, and all the more hesitant to follow the others into the elevator. "I think I'll stay down here while you talk to the Journeyman."

"Actually..." The page left the elevator again, walked around the archer and first slightly, then with increasing force, pushed him towards and inside it. "...Mister Jay gave me express instruction to bring you to him if we ever find you again." The archer's breaths turned a little irregular and even when everyone had settled for a place to stand in the elevator, he chose to uncomfortably recline in the corner.

When the bell announced their arrival and the doors open, the page rushed ahead through several close-together, but open doors, and another page, standing guard, gestured for the party to follow him with a friendly smile. "Mister Journeyman, sir! We found a dragonslayer! And he's a lightner, too!"

A familiar, but unexpected, croaky voice responded to him with surprise. "Really! Then what're ya waitin' for! Bring 'em in!" They were being led into an unreasonably large office, the tables on which were all stacked to the brim with literature and statues, art and trinkets from different parts of the light world.

Whether it was the far east, the west, or the southern peninsula of the further middle east, any part of the light world, as Kris knew it, that had anything of value to offer in the vein of art and sculpture, had something from it lying on the tables or hanging on the walls. It was like being at Berdly's house all over again, but taken to an extreme. Behind the desk, stood the man that matched the voice. A human with an unnatural, orange tan, and bright blond hair.

He had the folds of an old man, but he lacked the weakness you expected to come with it. He was dressed in multiple layers of thin silken garments, with various patterns covering each layer and threads of gold woven onto all of them. Noelle was startled and almost greeted him by a title he probably didn't have. It still took some getting used to for her, to remember how the dark world worked when it came to art and custom card designs.

It was clear that this wasn't who he looked like, he was a fictional character she made up, whether or not she did so consciously. As soon as they arrived, the Journeyman came right up to them and shook everyone's hand before going back behind his desk. "Hey there, guys. Dasher. Welcome to my tower. I'm the Journeyman."

Kris carefully raised a finger to then point it at the merchant. "Let me guess, the name's because you travel a lot?"

The Journeyman began smiling as widely as he did on the neon sign and pointed at himself with both his thumbs. "All around the world, Baby! All around the world! Looks like you're already gettin' how this works. So I'm guessing you're the dragonslayer."

"No - no, we didn't actually slay any..."

He had to admit in hindsight, was being a little too meek with this correction, as he was cut-off mid-sentence. "Nonsense, kid, ya gotta take credit where credit's due. If my guy's right and ya made it outta Fortune's Keep alive, obviously you musta slaughtered your way right through dozens of succubi to make it. Hundreds even."

He leaned over his table and pointed at him multiple times. "That's dragonslayer material right there. Perfect. It's great. It's exactly what we need right now, cause things are lookin' bad. Real' bad. This realm's a mess. And it's a good thing ya brought this guy right here." In a more dismissive way, he pointed off to the side, where Dasher was not so much standing as hiding behind Headbanger's back and guitar. "...'cause he's the one that made this mess. Maybe he could do a thing or two to sort it out."

"So why do you call them succubi anyway?"

The merchant nodded in an overplayed fashion. "Good question if ya don't know." He pressed a button on his desk, and when he did, a panel in the clean white ceiling opened up. From within, a flat screen almost wide and tall enough to cover the entire back of the office, extended itself downwards. "Maybe only use half of it."

He made some adjustments with a remote control he picked from the table, and the display switched to limit itself to about half the height and two thirds of the width. "So, this girl right here..." When he pressed another button, it switched to a digital slideshow, but apparently, the picture showed the three basic Susies Kris and the others had encountered in Fortune's Keep. A Grunt, a Berserker and a Mistress.

"Wait, that's the wrong one. I hate prepared presentations, but ya can't just draw photos on the fly, right? Ah, there we go. Here's Veritas." The next picture he switched the display to, was what Kris expected hearing that name.

It was Susie, but as a Roman legionnaire. With layered stripes of shiny iron armor wrapped around to thoroughly cover her chest and shoulders, a bright red skirt below leaving the rest of her legs bare, an a helmet with a bright red crest. And to complete it, a long cape in a red that matched her sleeves, skirt and crest hung over her shoulder. She was armed with a gladius and a long, red tower shield, which had intricate patterns painted on its front. There were more dead Susies lying in the background, so Kris could only figure what happened to the Grunt in the front.

"She's a great gal! Little on the unstable side, but when the kinda stuff happens that happened to her, I guess that's par for the course. Veritas cleared out all the succubi from this city. It's safe again. For now. Reason they're called succubi, is because before she left, she told us a lotta stuff about them and what the Knight wanted 'em to do, that we didn't get. The name came from us trying to make sense of it. I'm guessing since you're lightners, he was planning for this whole place to be some kinda trap for you. Since you're right here, it looks like it didn't quite work out that way."

"What do you know about the Knight?"

"He's - I'm not sure, he's weird. None of my guys ever got close enough to talk to him. They say he's got some hot girls slammed right onto his armor, but stuff's always strange around him. See for yourself." He picked up his remote control and switched to a different slide, showing only a vague, humanoid 'something'. "Nasty guy. Can't take a single good picture of him. No matter how sharp the image, it always comes out blurred. And a lotta magic, 'specially if it's utility stuff, just stops working around him."

"My golden doors!" burst out of Ralsei. "That's why I couldn't summon them in the castle! Does that mean he was there with us?"

The Journeyman shrugged. "Guess not. The Knight's gone now. Temptress is on her own, but that leads us to her." Again he switched slides, this time giving them a clear photo of Temptress floating above an army of succubi. The picture was taken from behind her, but the antlers, the long blond hair and the red dress were more than enough to tell it was her.

Going by the angle, it must have been taken from the rocks above the coast, between the sea and the city. "That's where the real trouble starts. We can deal with the succubi. Keep 'em outta the city, everything's fine. I'm not sure what you guys know about dark fountains, but every realm's got one, and whoever controls it, rules over the whole realm sooner or later. For this realm, ya do that through something called the 'Throne of Achievement'. Up on the Terrace of Divinity above the Kingdom o' Heaven.

And that's where Temptress comes in." Now with much less a cheerful mood, he nodded Dasher's way. Kris had trouble reading people, but Noelle could tell the merchant's tone was was somewhat...scolding. "So what did ol' sunnyboy over there tell ya about him and this girl?" And accordingly, Dasher took off his hat, for his blue feather to not draw more attention and cowered a little further down behind the dragon in the back.

"That they were close friends."

That didn't lighten up his mood in the least. "Mhm. Close friends, huh? Well they were a little more than close friends. And we were all gettin' a little crazy lately, but she got hit the hardest. He was gonna fix it, but lil' sunnyboy was being a bit of a scaredy-cat. Isn't that right?" Dasher said nothing. "Anyways, so she gets impatient and 'course, one 'bad boy' comes her way and she's all eyes for him. It's like everything before never meant anything to her."

He switched back to the blurred picture of the Knight. To Kris, this all sounded tremendously familiar, except for the part with falling in love with the Knight. "Now she's out to trade our trust and friendship for an empty shot at some crazy guy in a suit of armor. She's makin' the worst trade-off in the history of trade-offs. My guys picked up that she's settin' out to try and get her hands on the Throne of Achievement to use for the Knight. If she can corrupt that throne, we got a whole lotta other trouble comin' our way. You gotta stop'em. Ya gotta."

"Wouldn't we have to get to that terrace first?"

"You can worry about the terrace, once ya've reached the Kingdom o'Heaven. There's a whole ocean between here and there, but that's why I know what lil' romeo can do to help fix this mess. I'll give you my chariot. He can operate it."

The prince stepped forward and placed on hand on the table. "The wooden chariot we came with is going to get us past an ocean?"

"What? No, that's nonsense. My Chariot. My real 'Chariot'. That'll be so fast, all the head-start she got won't matter. She's sailing, so you'll catch up in no time anyway. You're gonna see once you get there. It's up in the Fields of Despair, on top of the rocks that make up this continent. Right on top of the city, too. My guys can give you a ride up the cliffs. Or you take the shortcu - . On second thought, don't take the shortcut. Bad idea. But first, if there's any time to prepare for your trip, it's now. Once you're on the Chariot, there's no goin' back."

He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a piece of paper with a few addresses on it, which he gave to Ralsei, since he was the closest one to him at the moment.

"I got a few places for you to pop by. For a start, you're gonna wanna visit the Drakeforger in her temple. She contacted us and told us if any lightners come through, she wants to talk to them and only them. She's a great gal, and she's been around long before the succubi. You can trust her. If there's anyone who can tell you anything ya gotta know about dragons, it's her. Then there's my wife. Since it's not like I can rely on Dasher to get anything done, I want you guys to take along my wife, so she can keep me posted on what's goin' on."

"We got lotsa friends over in the Kingdom o' Heaven. She can get you in touch with 'em, while I stay here and make sure the succubi don't pull anything here. She'll be performing in a restaurant called the 'Sinwielder's Den' right about now." That name sounded familiar as well, but for different reasons.

"Aaand..." He pulled up another piece of paper, a list of some sort and mumbled a few bullet points. "Knight, Veritas, Succubi, Temptress, Throne, list...yep, that's it. That's all I got for you guys. If you turn around that list, you're gonna find some phone numbers to call if you need directions, I got guys set up for everything. A lotta stuff can go wrong, but logistics isn't gonna be the issue."

Kris came closer to Ralsei to get a closer look at the back of that list, and the prince looked up at the merchant. "Thank you. For all of that."

"Nothin' to thank. You guys are the ones with all the work. Ya got anything else I can help ya with?"

As if he was in class, the human raised his finger. "One of us needs a weapon."

"So you're looking for a blacksmith. Blacksmith, blacksmith. There we go! Got one for ya. And a few stacks o' cash for slaying dragons on your way here." He handed Kris a case full of dark dollar bills and the prince a small scrap of paper. "Tell him I sent ya. Whatever you need from him's on me. And don't forget the map. Bedrock's a big place, gonna need that to figure your way around."

Once Kris had made sure they had everything, including the map, he gave the merchant a thumbs up, and after their goodbyes, they were all back in the elevator and on their way to the ground floor sooner than they knew. Now with a whole list of places to visit before they were ready to set out to travel overseas.

**Author's Note:**

> This is where notes go.  
> For one, in case additional chapters of the actual game do release soon, everything that follows is based entirely off of the very first chapter.
> 
> Comments especially with feedback are much appreciated.


End file.
